Capital Punishment in Eighteenth-Century Spain

The purpose of this article is to examine the theory and practice of capital punishment in eighteenth-century Spain and to evaluate Spanish justice within the broader framework of the European criminal justice system of the time. Spanish penal practices differed widely from English and French ones, and Spanish law was less given to the death penalty. Simple theft or larceny was not punished by the death sentence in Spain, and there was no additional legislation creating more capital offences as in eighteenth century England. Spanish law reserved the death penalty for certain categories of crimes and criminals and their number remained the same throughout the early modern period. Preference was given to sentences to penal labor in the presidios. With its emphasis on judicial discretion and its consideration of extenuating circumstances, the Spanish system of justice can best be described as a calculated combination of punishment, utilitarian practices and mercy. The data analyzed in this article are drawn from contemporary writings and judicial records extant in the Madrid archives. Cet article examine la théorie et la pratique de la peine capitale, dans l’Espagne du XVIIIe siècle, en considérant la justice espagnole dans un contexte plus large de la justice criminelle européenne de l’époque. La pratique pénale espagnole différait sensiblement de celles de l’Angleterre et de la France. C’est ainsi qu’elle y était moins disposée que dans ces pays à envisager la peine de mort. Et il n’y eut pas de législation additionnelle, accroissant le nombre de crimes capitaux, comme dans l’Angleterre du XVIIIe siècle. La législation espagnole réservait la peine de mort à certaines catégories de crimes et de criminels, catégories dont le nombre resta inchangé pendant toute l’époque moderne. Elle prévoyait plutôt des peines de travaux forcés dans les bagnes. Mettant l’accent sur le sens de la mesure et l’appréciation des circonstances atténuantes, le système judiciaire espagnol peut être décrit comme un dosage étudié de sanctions et de grâces, selon une ligne directrice utilitaire. Les données analysées dans cet article sont tirées d’archives judiciaires conservées aux archives de Madrid, en plus des écrits de l’époque

Toward an understanding of risk factors for binge-eating disorder in black and white women: A community-based case-control study

BACKGROUND: This study sought to identify in white women risk factors specific to binge-eating disorder (BED) and for psychiatric disorders in general, and to compare black and white women on risk factors for BED. METHOD: A case-control design was used. Participants were recruited from the community and included 162 women who met DSM-IV criteria for BED and two comparison groups of women with no history of clinically significant eating disorder symptoms. The comparison women were matched to BED women on age, education and ethnicity and divided into a healthy comparison (HC) group, who had no current psychiatric disorder, and a psychiatric comparison (PC) group, who had a diagnosis of a DSM-IV Axis I psychiatric disorder. The study sample size was determined by the group with the least members (PC), including 107 women with BED and 214 matched comparison women. A broad range of risk factors was assessed with a Risk Factor Interview and the Parental Bonding Instrument. RESULTS: No significant effects for ethnicity by diagnostic group were found. BED women reported higher exposure to childhood obesity, family overeating or binge-eating, family discord, and high parental demands than PC women. The combined BED and PC group scored significantly higher than the HC group on measures of negative affect, parental mood and substance disorders, perfectionism, separation from parents, and maternal problems with parenting. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that childhood obesity and familial eating problems are reliable specific risk factors for BED. Ethnicity does not appear to moderate risk for BED

Care and State Pension Reform - Interactions between state and pension long-term care reforms: a summary of findings

In April 2016 major reforms to state pensions were implemented in Great Britain. Reforms to the English long-term care financing system were also to be introduced in 2016 but have been postponed until 2020. The state pension reforms replace the existing two-tier state pension system with a single tier pension set just above the minimum income guaranteed through means-tested benefits. It affects only people reaching State Pension age from April 2016. The long-term care reforms introduce a cap on lifetime liability for care costs. To reach the cap, people will need to have eligible care needs for a considerable period, typically at least three years. The primary objective of the state pension reforms is to provide a clearer foundation for private pension saving and reduce reliance on means-tested benefits in retirement by setting the level of the new State Pension (nSP) above the level of the minimum income guaranteed by the means-tested benefit Pension Credit. The long-term care reforms introduce a lifetime limit on individual liability for care costs to provide protection against the risk that care costs could use up nearly all of an individual’s savings. The long-term effects of both sets of reforms will depend on how details of the systems are set in the intervening years, and in particular how components of the systems are adjusted each year – ‘uprated’ – for inflation. This report summarises the findings from a research project which aims to promote informed debate on how the reforms could evolve, highlighting the interactions between the two systems. Amongst other things, the study has analysed the impact of the reforms to 2030 under uprating assumptions consistent with current policy and under alternative uprating assumptions. A separate more detailed Technical Report of the analysis is available

Interactions between state pension and long-term care reforms: an overview

In April 2016 major reforms to state pensions and long-term care will be implemented in Great Britain and England respectively. Their combined effects have received little attention despite interactions between the two systems. The long-term effects of both sets of reforms will depend on how details of the systems are set in the intervening years, and on how policies in other parts of the welfare system evolve. We will investigate the long-term impacts of alternative ways in which current pensions and long-term care financing reforms may evolve over the next 40 years to ensure that that there is widespread appreciation of the implications of any changes which may have significant long-term effects

Plasma membrane cholesterol as a regulator of human and rodent P2X7 receptor activation and sensitization.

P2X7 receptors are nonselective cation channels gated by high extracellular ATP, but with sustained activation, receptor sensitization occurs, whereby the intrinsic pore dilates, making the cell permeable to large organic cations, which eventually leads to cell death. P2X7 receptors associate with cholesterol-rich lipid rafts, but it is unclear how this affects the properties of the receptor channel. Here we show that pore-forming properties of human and rodent P2X7 receptors are sensitive to perturbations of cholesterol levels. Acute depletion of cholesterol with 5 mm methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MCD) caused a substantial increase in the rate of agonist-evoked pore formation, as measured by the uptake of ethidium dye, whereas cholesterol loading inhibited this process. Patch clamp analysis of P2X7 receptor currents carried by Na(+) and N-methyl-D-glucamine (NMDG(+)) showed enhanced activation and current facilitation following cholesterol depletion. This contrasts with the inhibitory effect of methyl-β-cyclodextrin reported for other P2X subtypes. Mutational analysis suggests the involvement of an N-terminal region and a proximal C-terminal region that comprises multiple cholesterol recognition amino acid consensus (CRAC) motifs, in the cholesterol sensitivity of channel gating. These results reveal cholesterol as a negative regulator of P2X7 receptor pore formation, protecting cells from P2X7-mediated cell death.This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/F001320/1), the David James Studentship, Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and the Marshall Scholarship.This paper was originally published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry (Robinson LE, Shridar M, Smith P, Murrell-Lagnado RD, The Journal of Biological Chemistry 2014, 289, 46, 31983–31994, doi:10.1074/jbc.M114.574699

OSSOS. IV. DISCOVERY OF A DWARF PLANET CANDIDATE IN THE 9 : 2 RESONANCE WITH NEPTUNE

We report the discovery and orbit of a new dwarf planet candidate, 2015 RR245, by the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). The orbit of 2015 RR245 is eccentric (e = 0.586), with a semimajor axis near 82 au, yielding a perihelion distance of 34 au. 2015 RR245 has g - r = 0.59 +/- 0.11 and absolute magnitude H-r = 3.6 +/- 0.1; for an assumed albedo of p(V) = 12%, the object has a diameter of similar to 670. km. Based on astrometric measurements from OSSOS and Pan-STARRS1, we find that 2015 RR245 is securely trapped on ten-megayear timescales in the 9: 2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. It is the first trans-Neptunian object (TNO) identified in this resonance. On hundred-megayear. timescales, particles in 2015 RR245-like orbits depart and sometimes return to the resonance, indicating that 2015 RR245 likely forms part of the long-lived metastable population of distant TNOs that drift between resonance sticking and actively scattering via gravitational encounters with Neptune. The discovery of a 9: 2 TNO stresses the role of resonances in the long-term evolution of objects in the scattering disk. and reinforces the view that distant resonances are heavily populated in the current solar system. This object further motivates detailed modeling of the transient sticking population.Peer reviewe