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The Criminalisation of Humanitarian Assistance in Italy, Penal Populism, and the Rule of Law
Get PDFThe European and Italian institutional responses have been increasingly inspired by a securitarian-repressive logic aimed at targeting the de-personalised phenomenon of irregular migration and its facilitation. More specifically, these approaches have been consistent in reiterating the need to further strengthen border controls, allegedly aimed at tackling human trafficking and migrant smuggling. These efforts, however, de facto resulted in increased restrictions to the access of the asylum system and sharper penalties for those migrants excluded from the asylum seeker categories as well as in the creation of criminal and administrative law action targeting the humanitarian actors carrying out Search and Rescue operations in the Mediterranean area. Parallelly, the last decade has been characterised by the rise of populist movements across the western world and particularly in Europe. The political legitimation of such movements relies on the electoral consensus, gathered largely through the rhetoric counterposing national and foreigners, described by the political leaders as security threats. The resulting widespread feeling of insecurity and mistrust in the democratic processes led to the compulsive production of laws and norms rooted both in the criminal and administrative legal frameworks and aimed at repressing the phenomena of irregular migration and its facilitation. The thesis will adopt the lens of penal populism as interpretative tool to inspect the increment of the misuse of criminal and administrative legal measures by the Italian authorities to counter the activities of NGOs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) carrying out Search and Rescue operations in the Mediterranean area. It will be aimed at examining the extent to which the criminalisation of migration in Italy constitutes an example of penal populism and its consequences in terms of Rule of Law
International Research Networking Project "Language and Gender: Academic Research and Practical Implementation"
Get PDFHigh-temperature compressive behaviour and failure mechanism of high entropy carbides modified by Cr addition
No full textThe effect of Cr addition on the compressive and failure behaviour of high entropy carbides (HECs) at temperatures of 1400–1600 °C and stresses of 200–300 MPa was investigated by comparing two groups of ceramics: (Zr,Nb,Hf,Ta)C (HEC4) and HEC4 with Cr addition (HEC5-Cr), and 8-metal carbides (Ti,Zr,Hf,V,Nb,Ta,Mo,X)C with W or Cr addition for X. The HEC-Cr systems showed significantly lower compressive strain than Cr-free HECs under identical conditions. HEC4 showed a strain of about 1.4 % at 1500 °C under 200 MPa for 6 h, while HEC5-Cr demonstrated only 0.05 % strain. To the best of our knowledge, HEC5-Cr exhibited the lowest steady creep rate among carbides reported under similar conditions. Creep is almost negligible in HEC-Cr ceramics, mostly because the grain boundary sliding and cracking were restricted by the strong Cr-rich grain boundaries. The Cr addition changed the failure behaviour of HECs: the Cr-free HEC samples shattered into numerous pieces due to severe grain boundary deformation, the HEC-Cr samples typically fractured into two parts with transgranular failure. The strategic addition of Cr to HECs enhances compressive performance and modifies fracture behaviour, indicating their potential as superior materials for high-stress, high-temperature applications
Relationship between left ventricular shape and cardiovascular risk factors: comparison between the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and UK Biobank.
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Statistical shape atlases have been used in large-cohort studies to investigate relationships between heart shape and risk factors. The generalisability of these relationships between cohorts is unknown. The aims of this study were to compare left ventricular (LV) shapes in patients with differing cardiovascular risk factor profiles from two cohorts and to investigate whether LV shape scores generated with respect to a reference cohort can be directly used to study shape differences in another cohort. METHODS: Two cardiac MRI cohorts were included: 2106 participants (median age: 65 years, 54% women) from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) and 2960 participants (median age: 64 years, 52% women) from the UK Biobank (UKB) study. LV shape atlases were constructed from 3D LV models derived from expert-drawn contours from separate core labs. Atlases were considered generalisable for a risk factor if the area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) were not significantly different (p>0.05) between internal (within-cohort) and external (cross-cohort) cases. RESULTS: LV mass and volume indices were differed significantly between cohorts, even in age-matched and sex-matched cases without risk factors, partly reflecting different core lab analysis protocols. For the UKB atlas, internal and external discriminative performance were not significantly different for hypertension (AUC: 0.77 vs 0.76, p=0.37), diabetes (AUC: 0.79 vs 0.77, p=0.48), hypercholesterolaemia (AUC: 0.76 vs 0.79, p=0.38) and smoking (AUC: 0.69 vs 0.67, p=0.18). For the MESA atlas, diabetes (AUC: 0.79 vs 0.74, p=0.09) and hypercholesterolaemia (AUC: 0.75 vs 0.70, p=0.10) were not significantly different. Both atlases showed significant differences for obesity. CONCLUSIONS: The MESA and UKB atlases demonstrated good generalisability for diabetes and hypercholesterolaemia, without requiring corrections for differences in mass and volume. Significant differences in obesity may be due to different relationships between obesity and heart shapes between cohorts
Sovereign Debt Restructuring – is it time for new UK legislation?
No full textThere is widespread concern that high debt burdens in many Global South countries, especially those most vulnerable to economic and climate shocks, is crowding out social and climate spending. Where countries have defaulted, there are concerns that debt relief has been neither deep enough nor quick enough. In response, there have been a number of calls, including from the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee in 2023, for the UK to pass new legislation (a ‘debt justice law’) that would influence the behaviour of private creditors during debt restructuring processes. In November 2024 a Private Members' Bill, the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill 2024, was introduced to Parliament. This draws inspiration from similar proposals put before the New York state legislature, and from the fact that the UK has passed debt legislation before, in 2010, in the context of the High Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). This paper examines the New York and UK bills and asks whether it would be desirable to draw from, or adopt, them in the current context. To do so, we start by summarising the evolution of the sovereign debt restructuring regime and how private creditors have typically participated. We then look at past legislation as well as the New York and UK bills and what they are trying to achieve. We then make a critical assessment of their potential effectiveness. We find that, while well-intentioned, the draft legislation presents a number of fundamental issues: They aim to provide legal backing for the principle of comparability of treatment. However, at present, this is a negotiated concept. Without further clarity on its definition, which official creditors have resisted providing, it is not clear how courts could enforce this. Such a lack of clarity could have negative consequences for the borrowing costs of debtor countries, and also on the UK as a key jurisdiction for the issuance of sovereign debt. They are not focused on the key problems debt restructuring processes currently display. Litigation by distressed investment funds (also referred to as vulture funds) that acquire outstanding bonds at a steep discount, and then refuse to participate in debt restructuring and seek full repayment, is frequently used to justify the need for such legislation, but this problem seems to have largely been addressed by the introduction of collective action clauses (CACs) in bond contracts. The key reason why recent debt restructurings have been slow is inter-creditor coordination, particularly between official creditors, rather than because of a lack of engagement by private creditors. Furthermore, the overall envelope for debt relief in a restructuring is conditioned by the IMF debt sustainability analysis. As debt legislation is not targeted on either issue, it is unlikely to do much to make most debt restructurings quicker or give deeper debt relief to borrowing countries. However, carefully focused legislation could enhance the current debt restructuring process, for instance by providing a temporary automatic stay on litigation. Just as important as legislation, if not more so, is the crucial role the UK can play in pushing for improvements to sovereign debt restructuring policies and processes as part of the G20 and the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable. Such improvements include establishing a universal debt service standstill when countries enter a restructuring process; further innovations in bond contracts building on climate-resilient debt clauses (which the UK has already adopted in its official lending); and greater transparency from both lenders and borrowers. Any proposed UK legislation will require extensive consultation with other key stakeholders including the IMF, finance ministers from Global South countries, legal experts and private creditors to ensure it does not undermine the UK as having a reliable and predictable legal system for sovereign debt, or risk either raising the cost of borrowing for Global South countries or leading to creditors trying to shift bond issuance from London to other jurisdictions. For this reason, it is undesirable for the UK to act unilaterally on this matter
Consumer preferences for the visual presentation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of luxury products: The role of perceived authenticity
No full textNon-fungible tokens (NFTs) are increasingly used to safeguard luxury products from counterfeits. Despite their increasing adoption, limited research has investigated how brands should communicate the use of NFTs—a novel and complex concept for consumers to comprehend—to maximize their benefits. This research aims to examine this gap by highlighting that the ease of visualization is critical for effective communication. Study 1A demonstrated that consumers prefer a visualized NFT to a non-visualized one for authenticating a luxury product. Study 1B further demonstrated that consumers place greater trust in a visualized NFT and are willing to pay higher prices for luxury products that utilize it. Study 2 demonstrated that consumers have more favorable attitudes toward a luxury product that features an easy-to-visualize NFT than those with a difficult-to-visualize NFT and that perceived authenticity mediates this effect. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that the positive impacts of easy-to-visualize NFT cues were more significant for luxury than non-luxury products. Subsequently, this study suggests an effective communication strategy for NFT use and provides managerial implications for luxury brands aiming to maximize the benefits of using NFTs
Targeting the YTHDFs for the eradication of leukaemic stem cells in acute myeloid leukaemia
No full textAcute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is an aggressive disorder of HSCs and progenitors, which acquire driver mutations to generate treatment-resistant leukaemic stem cells (LSCs). A limitation of current therapies is the inability to eradicate LSCs, resulting in relapse. As such, the field is turning to novel areas of research, such as mRNA modifications, to unveil molecular vulnerabilities with the potential to eliminate LSCs, while leaving normal haematopoiesis unharmed. The N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification is the most abundant modification. m6A modified transcripts are recognised by ‘reader’ proteins, including YTHDF1-3, which regulate transcript outcome. Previously, we found that YTHDF2 is overexpressed in AML and its deletion compromises disease progression. However, long-term deletion induces pro-inflammatory pathways, which may have deleterious effects on HSC functionality. Here, this thesis reveals the impact of YTHDF1 and YTHDF3 inactivation, singly and in combination with one another in the context of AML and normal haematopoiesis, to determine the optimal therapeutic strategy for targeting YTHDF proteins in AML treatment. I demonstrate that YTHDF1 and YTHDF3 alone or in combination are dispensable for steady state haematopoiesis. However, YTHDF1 may be required for the long-term reconstitution capacity of HSCs. Moreover, genetic deletion of Ythdf1 and -3 compromises AML initiation and development in murine and human AML. In collaboration with the Schofield Lab (University of Oxford), I provide evidence for the pharmacological targeting of the YTHDFs through the successful development of novel inhibitor compounds. Moreover, RNA-seq and proteomics analysis reveals similar downstream expression profiles of YTHDF1 and YTHDF3 that are distinct from YTHDF2 in AML. Taken together, this thesis provides further evidence for YTHDF inhibition as a viable approach for more targeted treatment for the eradication of LSCs in AML therapy
