The summer’s riots and the Occupy movement are both protests against, and a rejection of, an economy that is no longer working for most ordinary citizens

2011 has seen the streets of London dramatically occupied, first with the riots and looting that struck in August, and more recently with the tents of the Occupy LSX encampment. Rodney Barker argues that both forms of ‘street theatre’ are a response to the perceived ills of the modern economy

Book review: the great persuasion: reinventing free markets since the depression

The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression by Angus Burgin ISBN 9780674058132, Harvard University Press, 201

The plumage and the bird: We need to reappraise what is 'essential' and what 'superfluous' in political life

Political theories have often included frameworks that minimize the importance of some aspects of human flourishing and prioritize others. Rodney Barker takes issue with these distinctions, arguing for the fundamental importance of cultural choices and display in understanding human conduct

How foreigners became the convenient scapegoat of the referendum campaign

The Brexit campaign was never really about the EU or even immigration. It was about foreigners. Foreigners became a scapegoat for all the things that are not working properly – including in the NHS and in schools. But the government could not have confronted this use of xenophobia, writes Rodney Barker. Doing so would be to admit that these failures were not because of immigration but because of its own policies

Experts react to the Spending Review: what next for the Conservative Party?

We asked experts to react to the 2015 Spending Review, with a particular focus on the Conservative Party moving forward. Tom Quinn sees a pitch for swing voters and the centre ground. Simon Griffiths points towards George Osborne’s ability as a political tactician, and Tim Bale also argues that Osborne is on target to be the next Conservative Party leader. However, Rodney Barker wonders how long it will be until the policies and rhetoric of austerity come back to bite the Chancellor. Mark Garnnett agrees and raises a further crucial point: is the Office of Budget Responsibility on its way to becoming a political tool? And finally, our commentators seem to agree – Labour in Opposition is in trouble, and the less said about that little red book, the better

Cultivating political and public identity: why plumage matters

Public and political life can no longer be seen as simply the pursuit of material gain or even as the struggle for enough food and shelter by which to live. The interests which people pursue are shaped by the identities which they both inherit and cultivate. In generating identities, everything is important, from clothing to cuisine, from architecture to language, and to understand why and how people associate in groups and communities, and why they compete and conflict with each other, every aspect of identity has to be taken seriously. Whatever secrets may remain in people's minds or souls, who they are socially is what they say, what they eat, and how they live. This book is ideal reading for students, lecturers, and the general reader interested in the importance of identity in public life, and in the inherent political momentum in identity cultivation to both equality and inequality simultaneously

Iso-osmotic regulation of nitrate accumulation in lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.)

Concerns about possible health hazards arising from human consumption of lettuce and other edible vegetable crops with high concentrations of nitrate have generated demands for a greater understanding of processes involved in its uptake and accumulation in order to devise more sustainable strategies for its control. This paper evaluates a proposed iso-osmotic mechanism for the regulation of nitrate accumulation in lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) heads. This mechanism assumes that changes in the concentrations of nitrate and all other endogenous osmotica (including anions, cations and neutral solutes) are continually adjusted in tandem to minimise differences in osmotic potential of the shoot sap during growth, with these changes occurring independently of any variations in external water potential. The hypothesis was tested using data from six new experiments, each with a single unique treatment comprising a separate combination of light intensity, N source (nitrate with or without ammonium) and nitrate concentration carried out hydroponically in a glasshouse using a butterhead lettuce variety. Repeat measurements of plant weights and estimates of all of the main soluble constituents (nitrate, potassium, calcium, magnesium, organic anions, chloride, phosphate, sulphate and soluble carbohydrates) in the shoot sap were made at intervals from about 2 weeks after transplanting until commercial maturity, and the data used to calculate changes in average osmotic potential in the shoot. Results showed that nitrate concentrations in the sap increased when average light levels were reduced by between 30 and 49 % and (to a lesser extent) when nitrate was supplied at a supra-optimal concentration, and declined with partial replacement of nitrate by ammonium in the external nutrient supply. The associated changes in the proportions of other endogenous osmotica, in combination with the adjustment of shoot water content, maintained the total solute concentrations in shoot sap approximately constant and minimised differences in osmotic potential between treatments at each sampling date. There was, however, a gradual increase in osmotic potential (ie a decline in total solute concentration) over time largely caused by increases in shoot water content associated with the physiological and morphological development of the plants. Regression analysis using normalised data (to correct for these time trends) showed that the results were consistent with a 1:1 exchange between the concentrations of nitrate and the sum of all other endogenous osmotica throughout growth, providing evidence that an iso-osmotic mechanism (incorporating both concentration and volume regulation) was involved in controlling nitrate concentrations in the shoot

Expansión de las capacidades de depuración de la Plataforma de Validación de Producto del procesador Itanium® 2

Proyecto de Graduación (Licenciatura en Ingeniería Electrónica). Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. Escuela de Ingeniería Electrónica, 2007.Este proyecto se realizó para el “Grupo de Desarrollo y Manufactura de Servidores en Componentes Intel de Costa Rica”, y se ha enfocado en el procesador Itanium® 2 de nueva generación con características innovadoras y capacidades extendidas que lo hacen competir en el segmento de mercado de las supercomputadoras. El proyecto se planteó como una investigación para determinar la factibilidad de poder controlar y observar este procesador por medios no convencionales. Se expone aquí la posibilidad de crear procedimientos funcionales a partir de los resultados de la investigación. Requirió el uso del puerto de pruebas descrito por el estándar IEEE.1149.1a, que define tanto los parámetros como las regulaciones que la especifican. Este es esfuerzo innovador para determinar las posibilidades de ampliar las facultades de diagnóstico durante el Proceso de Validación de Producto, con este proyecto se refuerza la capacidad de realizar el análisis de las fallas que se presenta en el procesador a nivel de arquitectura, proveyendo así un mejor nivel de entendimiento que permita al desarrollador plantear mejoras al diseño de este en menor tiempo

Evidence of a Causal Association Between Insulinemia and Endometrial Cancer: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Insulinemia and type 2 diabetes (T2D) have been associated with endometrial cancer risk in numerous observational studies. However, the causality of these associations is uncertain. Here we use a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach to assess whether insulinemia and T2D are causally associated with endometrial cancer. METHODS: We used single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with T2D (49 variants), fasting glucose (36 variants), fasting insulin (18 variants), early insulin secretion (17 variants), and body mass index (BMI) (32 variants) as instrumental variables in MR analyses. We calculated MR estimates for each risk factor with endometrial cancer using an inverse-variance weighted method with SNP-endometrial cancer associations from 1287 case patients and 8273 control participants. RESULTS: Genetically predicted higher fasting insulin levels were associated with greater risk of endometrial cancer (odds ratio [OR] per standard deviation = 2.34, 95% confidence internal [CI] = 1.06 to 5.14, P = .03). Consistently, genetically predicted higher 30-minute postchallenge insulin levels were also associated with endometrial cancer risk (OR = 1.40, 95% CI = 1.12 to 1.76, P = .003). We observed no associations between genetic risk of type 2 diabetes (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.79 to 1.04, P = .16) or higher fasting glucose (OR = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.67 to 1.50, P = .99) and endometrial cancer. In contrast, endometrial cancer risk was higher in individuals with genetically predicted higher BMI (OR = 3.86, 95% CI = 2.24 to 6.64, P = 1.2x10(-6)). CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence to support a causal association of higher insulin levels, independently of BMI, with endometrial cancer risk.This study was supported by MRC grant MC_UU_12015/1 and by the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under EMIF grant agreement n° 115372 (contributions from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies). ANECS recruitment was supported by project grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (ID#339435), The Cancer Council Queensland (ID#4196615) and Cancer Council Tasmania (ID#403031 and ID#457636). SEARCH recruitment was funded by a programme grant from Cancer Research UK [C490/A10124]. Case genotyping was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (ID#552402). Control data was generated by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC), and a full list of the investigators who contributed to the generation of the data is available from the WTCCC website. We acknowledge use of DNA from the British 1958 Birth Cohort collection, funded by the Medical Research Council grant G0000934 and the Wellcome Trust grant 068545/Z/02. Funding for this project was provided by the Wellcome Trust under award 085475. Recruitment of the QIMR controls was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC). The University of Newcastle, the Gladys M Brawn Senior Research Fellowship scheme, The Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, the Hunter Medical Research Institute and the Hunter Area Pathology Service all contributed towards the costs of establishing the Hunter Community Study. K.T.N. was supported by the Gates Cambridge Trust. R.K.S. is supported by the Wellcome Trust (grant number WT098498). A.B.S. is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Fellowship Scheme. D.F.E. is a Principal Research Fellow of Cancer Research UK. A.M.D is supported by the Joseph Mitchell Trust.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djv17

The utility of length of mining service and latency in predicting silicosis among claimants to a compensation trust

In the wake of a large burden of silicosis and tuberculosis among ex-miners from the South African gold mining industry, several programmes have been engaged in examining and compensating those at risk of these diseases. Availability of a database from one such programme, the Q(h)ubeka Trust, provided an opportunity to examine the accuracy of length of service in predicting compensable silicosis, and the concordance between self-reported employment and that officially recorded. Compensable silicosis was determined by expert panels, with ILO profusion ≥1/0 as the threshold for compensability. Age, officially recorded and self-reported years of service, and years since first and last service of 3146 claimants for compensable silicosis were analysed. Self-reported and recorded service were moderately correlated (R = 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.64–0.68), with a Bland–Altman plot showing no systematic bias. There was reasonably high agreement with 75% of the differences being less than two years. Logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis were used to test prediction of compensable silicosis. There was little predictive difference between length of service on its own and a model adjusting for length of service, age, and years since last exposure. Predictive accuracy was moderate, with significant potential misclassification. Twenty percent of claimants with compensable silicosis had a length of service <10 years; in almost all these claims, the interval between last exposure and the claim was 10 years or more. In conclusion, self-reported service length in the absence of an official service record could be accepted in claims with compatible clinical findings. Length of service offers, at best, moderate predictive capability for silicosis. Relatively short service compensable silicosis, when combined with at least 10 years since last exposure, was not uncommon.SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL : FIGURE S1. Receiver operating characteristic curve for length of service (years) as predictor against compensable silicosis as outcome.https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerphSchool of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH