984 research outputs found
The changing strategy of Islamic movements in the Middle East
No full textThe Changing Strategy of Islamic Movements in the Middle East By Nigel Graham Werrey-Easterbrook For many years the Middle East has been in turmoil and has been the scene of four major wars between Israel and its neighbours. Linked to this has been persistent Islamic terrorism which has found new forms as the years have gone by. The thesis looks first at the history of Palestine, the rise of Israel and the reaction of other regional states. The growth of militant Islamic groups is then examined, with special attention to Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Territories. The structure of the groups is examined to determine their chances of attaining power. To evaluate that possibility better, consideration is given both to the mix of conventional weapons available to them and to the possible availability of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological and nuclear weapons). The reasons for the rise of the suicide bomber in the Occupied Territories are directly addressed with a view to assessing how far Islamic beliefs influence the choice of these tactics. Finally, the role of outside states and the possibility of successful counter-measures is considered.</p
Antiretroviral resistance in clinical practice
No full textDespite the success of potent combination therapy against HIV, a large proportion of patients experiences treatment failure. Due to the high degree of plasticity of the HIV genome, ongoing virus replication in the presence of drug pressure will result in the selection of virus mutants with reduced drug susceptibility As a result, antiretroviral drug-resistance is a common denominator in treatment failure. Two methods, genotyping and phenotyping, are commercially available for measuring resistance in clinical samples. Whereas genotyping detects resistance-conferring mutations in the HIV reverse transcriptase and protease genes, the recombinant virus assay is a newly developed phenotyping technique which determines drug-susceptibility in a virus culture assay. With both methods, result interpretation remains challenging. Retrospective studies and randomized controlled clinical trials support the clinical utility of resistance testing in the setting of treatment failure. The optimal applications of resistance testing in a variety of other clinical settings remain to be defined
Status of approved protocols for Easterbrook 1991 study [24].
No full text<p>Status of approved protocols for Easterbrook 1991 study <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0066844#pone.0066844-Easterbrook1" target="_blank">[24]</a>.</p
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No full textMatthew J. Easterbrook on the psychology of class-based identities, interventions, and injunctions in education.</p
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No full textMatthew J. Easterbrook on the psychology of class-based identities, interventions, and injunctions in education.</p
Making a Difference: The Contractual Contributions of Easterbrook and Fischel
No full textGeorge Stigler reportedly once toasted Milton Friedman by saying: "Milton, if you hadn't been born, it wouldn't have made any difference." This multi-edged compliment might have implied that even if Friedman had not been born, the market place of ideas would have supplied his analysis. Judge Frank Easterbrook and Professor Daniel Fischel do not have the same faith in the market place of ideas for corporate law. Their view instead is that academics (and regulators) "are rewarded for novel rather than accurate beliefs" (p 208). Academics face weaker motivations than market participants because they don't suffer if they lobby for inefficient rules. Given these weakened incentives, the publication of The Economic Structure of Corporate Law is an especially noteworthy accomplishment. Easterbrook and Fischel have made a difference in our understanding of corporate law. By illuminating the economic structure of corporate decisions, their book provides a powerful guide to legislatures and particularly to courts crafting corporate rules
Making a Difference: The Contractual Contributions of Easterbrook and Fischel
No full textGeorge Stigler reportedly once toasted Milton Friedman by saying: Milton, if you hadn\u27t been born, it wouldn\u27t have made any difference. This multi-edged compliment might have implied that even if Friedman had not been born, the market place of ideas would have supplied his analysis. Judge Frank Easterbrook and Professor Daniel Fischel do not have the same faith in the market place of ideas for corporate law. Their view instead is that academics (and regulators) are rewarded for novel rather than accurate beliefs (p 208). Academics face weaker motivations than market participants because they don\u27t suffer if they lobby for inefficient rules. Given these weakened incentives, the publication of The Economic Structure of Corporate Law is an especially noteworthy accomplishment. Easterbrook and Fischel have made a difference in our understanding of corporate law. By illuminating the economic structure of corporate decisions, their book provides a powerful guide to legislatures and particularly to courts crafting corporate rules
Hepatitis C: global epidemiology and strategies for control
No full textIt is estimated that globally there are approximately 100 million persons with serological evidence of current or past HCV infection, and that HCV causes about 700 000 deaths each year. The prevalence of infection is the highest in lower and middle income countries, in which a significant number of past infections were caused by iatrogenic transmission and sub-optimal injection safety. In contrast, in developed countries, infections are caused mainly by high-risk exposures and behaviours among specific populations, such as persons who inject drugs. Recently, new direct antiviral activity (DAA) oral drugs with high rates of cure over short duration, which are well tolerated, have made chronic hepatitis C a curable condition. The extraordinary clinical performance of DAAs and recent substantial price reductions and expansion in access in resource-limited settings has provided new impetus for potential control and elimination of hepatitis C as a public health threat. We review the global epidemiology of HCV and the opportunities for preventative and treatment interventions to achieve global control of HCV infection. We also summarize the key elements of the World Health Organization's first-ever global health sector strategy for addressing the viral hepatitis pandemic
High levels of discordance between sequencing and serological subtyping in a predominantly non-B subtype HIV-1 infected cohort
No full textSamples from 457 randomly selected HIV-1 infected patients attending King's College Hospital were analysed using a subtype specific enzyme immunoassay. All serotyped non-Bs that provided unambiguous sequence and for which sufficient sample was available (n = 100), which included three serotyped subtype B samples were further analysed by env sequencing and subtyping using neighbour joining phylogenetic analysis, the NCB1 Retrovirus Genotyping too] and the Los Alamos BLAST search tool. Of the serotyped viruses, 45% (n = 204) samples were subtype B. Specifically serotyped non-B strains (n = 130) accounted for 28% of the total, of which the largest proportion were subtype C (n = 66). Twenty-seven samples (6%) were classified as non-B, 9% (n = 40) were multiply-reactive and 12% were non-reactive (n = 56). Of the 100 samples subtyped by sequencing the majority were subtype C (n = 32), followed by subtype A (n = 20). There was little concordance between the two methods. Although a 100% match was found among the serotyped and sequenced non-B viruses (n = 13), only 16 of the sequenced subtype C specimens matched the 29 obtained by serotyping. Of the 20 multi ply-reactive samples analysed by serotyping, only I sample consisted of a subtype mixture by sequencing. Of the 14 serologically non-reactive samples analysed, all were successfully sequenced, with subtype B strains (57%) the most common. Sequencing 15 samples in both env and pol regions revealed differences in subtype assignment for the same sample in some cases. Only 1/6 env subtype A and 4/5 env subtype C samples were concordant in pol sequence subtype. Differences were also found in subtyping by the different methods used. The overall agreement between the three methods was 89%. Four out of 11 samples agreed between the phylogenetic and Los Alamos methods, 1/11 between phylogenetic and BLAST and 2/11 between Los Alamos and BLAST. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserve
Impact of HIV-1 viral subtype on disease progression and response to antiretroviral therapy
No full textBackground. Our intention was to compare the rate of immunological progression prior to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and the virological response to ART in patients infected with subtype B and four non-B HIV-1 subtypes (A, C, D and the circulating recombinant form, CRF02-AG) in an ethnically diverse population of HIV-1-infected patients in south London. Methods. A random sample of 861 HIV-1-infected patients attending HIV clinics at King's and St Thomas' hospitals' were subtyped using an in-house enzyme-linked immunoassay and env sequencing. Subtypes were compared on the rate of CD4 cell decline using a multi-level random effects model. Virological response to ART was compared using the time to virological suppression (< 400 copies/ml) and rate of virological rebound (> 400 copies/ml) following initial suppression. Results. Complete subtype and epidemiological data were available for 679 patients, of whom 357 (52.6%) were white and 230 (33.9%) were black African. Subtype B (n = 394) accounted for the majority of infections, followed by subtypes C (n = 125), A (n = 84), D (n = 51) and CRF02-AG (n = 25). There were no significant differences in rate of CD4 cell decline, initial response to highly active antiretroviral therapy and subsequent rate of virological rebound for subtypes B, A, C and CRF02-AG. However, a statistically significant four-fold faster rate of CD4 decline (after adjustment for gender, ethnicity and baseline CD4 count) was observed for subtype D. In addition, subtype D infections showed a higher rate of virological rebound at six months (70%) compared with subtypes B (45%, p = 0.02), A (35%, p = 0.004) and C (34%, p = 0.01). Conclusions. This is the first study from an industrialized country to show a faster CD4 cell decline and higher rate of subsequent virological failure with subtype D infection. Further studies are needed to identify the molecular mechanisms responsible for the greater virulence of subtype D. © 2010 Easterbrook et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd
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