58 research outputs found
R v Hinks [2001] 1 AC 241, House of Lords
No full textEssential Cases: Criminal Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in R v Hinks [2001] 1 AC 241, House of Lords. The document also included supporting commentary from author Jonathan Herring.</p
"Choose to be optimistic, it feels better?" Evidence of optimism on employment utility
No full textIndividual’s expected wages exceed predicted market wages. Rational expectations imply the divergence should be zero. If individuals over-estimate the return from their attributes and view the paid-employment return distribution too favourably, then conditional on market wages, subsequent employment utility is likely to be low through disappointment
Regulatory T cells are expanded in blood and disease sites in patients with tuberculosis
No full textRationale: T-cell responses during tuberculosis (TB) help contain Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vivo but also cause collateral damage to host tissues. Immune regulatory mechanisms may limit this immunopathology, and suppressed cellular immune responses in patients with TB suggest the presence of regulatory activity. CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells mediate suppressed cellular immunity in several chronic infections but have not been described in TB.Objective: To determine whether regulatory T cells are increased in patients with TB and whether they suppress cellular immune responses.Methods: We compared the frequency of circulating regulatory T cells in 27 untreated patients with TB and 23 healthy control subjects using two specific markers: cell-surface CD25 expression and FoxP3 mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.Measurements and Main Results: We detected a threefold increase in the frequency of CD4+CD25high T cells (p < 0.001) and a 2.2-fold increase in FoxP3 expression (p = 0.006) in patients with TB, and there was a positive correlation between these markers (r = 0.58, p < 0.001). Increased expression of interleukin-10 and transforming growth factor-beta1 mRNA was also detected in patients with TB but did not correlate with regulatory T-cell markers. Ex vivo depletion of CD4+CD25high cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells resulted in increased numbers of M. tuberculosis antigen–specific IFN-{gamma}–producing T cells in seven of eight patients with TB (p = 0.005). Finally, FoxP3 expression was increased 2.3-fold in patients with extrapulmonary TB compared with patients with purely pulmonary TB (p = 0.01) and was amplified 2.6-fold at disease sites relative to blood (p = 0.043).Conclusions: Regulatory T cells are expanded in patients with TB and may contribute to suppression of Th1-type immune responses
Job Satisfaction and Employment Equity in South Africa
No full textThis paper is the first to estimate job satisfaction equations in post-Apartheid South Africa. Absolute earnings contribute to greater job satisfaction. Racial group is also an important predictor of job satisfaction, but, when interacted with a proxy for affirmative action legislation, it is found that black job satisfaction is positively correlated with this legislation whereas coloured and to a lesser extent white job satisfaction is diminished. Copyright 2010 The author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected], Oxford University Press.
Trusting neighbours or strangers in a racially divided society: Insights from survey data in South Africa
No full textIn this paper, we investigate reported measures of trust in South Africa, collected in the 2008 National Income Dynamics Study. In particular, we compare responses to two questions asked of all adult respondents about the likelihood that a lost wallet or purse will be returned either by 'someone who lives close by' or by a 'complete stranger'. Although reported levels of trust are very low, we find that South African adults are significantly more likely to report trusting neighbours than strangers. We use ordered probit regressions to estimate the correlates of these two measures of trust and in particular, to probe race differences in trust. Consistent with studies from the USA and from South Africa, we find considerable racial variation in reported trust. In comparison with whites, other population groups in South Africa are significantly less likely to report trusting people who live close by. However, these race differences are dramatically reduced once differences in personal and neighbourhood income are controlled for. In contrast, race differences in trust of strangers are smaller, and they are even reversed among black South Africans, who appear more trusting than other population groups of strangers. © The author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved
MIAMI: Microscope and ion accelerator for materials investigations
No full textA transmission electron microscope (TEM) with in situ ion irradiation has been built at the University of Salford, U.K. The system consists of a Colutron G-2 ion source connected to a JEOL JEM-2000FX TEM via an in-house designed and constructed ion beam transport system. The ion source can deliver ion energies from 0.5 to 10 keV for singly charged ions and can be floated up to 100 kV to allow acceleration to higher energies. Ion species from H to Xe can be produced for the full range of energies allowing the investigation of implantation with light ions such as helium as well as the effects of displacing irradiation with heavy inert or self-ions. The ability to implant light ions at energies low enough such that they come to rest within the thickness of a TEM sample and to also irradiate with heavier species at energies sufficient to cause large numbers of atomic displacements makes this facility ideally suited to the study of materials for use in nuclear environments. TEM allows the internal microstructure of a sample to be imaged at the nanoscale. By irradiating in situ it is possible to observe the dynamic evolution of radiation damage which can occur during irradiation as a result of competing processes within the system being studied. Furthermore, experimental variables such as temperature can be controlled and maintained throughout both irradiation and observation. This combination of capabilities enables an understanding of the underlying atomistic processes to be gained and thus gives invaluable insights into the fundamental physics governing the response of materials to irradiation. Details of the design and specifications of the MIAMI facility are given along with examples of initial experimental results in silicon and silicon carbide
Fear of robots and life satisfaction
No full textThe use of robots and in particular next-generation robots in the production of goods and services is increasing. What impact robots are having on people’s quality of life, including workers, is as yet under-explored. This paper provides initial findings examining whether fear of robots is correlated with one aspect of quality of life: life satisfaction. After controlling for individual effects and country effects and using both standard ordinary least squares and a linear multilevel regression model, we find fear of robots correlates with lower reported life satisfaction. There are differences in the fear of robots and life satisfaction by age group, by how long countries have been members of the European Union and by whether we control for attitudes towards other things. We call for more research into attitudes towards technology and new technologies in particular, how these impact on current life satisfaction and other aspects of quality of life and to think more about how technological change and people’s attitudes towards these can be more aligned
Progressive abnormalities in skeletal muscle and neuromuscular junctions of transgenic mice expressing the Huntington's disease mutation
No full textHuntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with complex symptoms dominated by progressive motor dysfunction. Skeletal muscle atrophy is common in HD patients. Because the HD mutation is expressed in skeletal muscle as well as brain, we wondered whether the muscle changes arise from primary pathology. We used R6/2 transgenic mice for our studies. Unlike denervation atrophy, skeletal muscle atrophy in R6/2 mice occurs uniformly. Paradoxically however, skeletal muscles show age-dependent denervation-like abnormalities, including supersensitivity to acetylcholine, decreased sensitivity to mu-conotoxin, and anode-break action potentials. Morphological abnormalities of neuromuscular junctions are also present, particularly in older R6/2 mice. Severely affected R6/2 mice show a progressive increase in the number of motor endplates that fail to respond to nerve stimulation. Surprisingly, there was no constitutive sprouting of motor neurons in R6/2 muscles, even in severely atrophic muscles that showed other denervation-like characteristics. In fact, there was an age-dependent loss of regenerative capacity of motor neurons in R6/2 mice. Because muscle fibers appear to be released from the activity-dependent cues that regulate membrane properties and muscle size, and motor axons and nerve terminals become impaired in their capacity to release neurotransmitter and to respond to stimuli that normally evoke sprouting and adaptive reinnervation, we speculate that in these mice there is a progressive dissociation of trophic signalling between motor neurons and skeletal muscle. However, irrespective of the cause, the abnormalities at neuromuscular junctions we report here are likely to contribute to the pathological phenotype in R6/2 mice, particularly in late stages of the disease
Testing for wage overpayment in UK financial services: A stochastic frontier approach
No full textThe past ten years have witnessed a sharp rise in competition in UK financial services. This has been due to factors such as liberalisation, increases in technology and advancing globalisation. As a result of these pressures there has been an increasing emphasis placed on cost management and overall efficiency in the financial services firm. This article examines the impact of these developments on the degree of wage overpayment in the UK financial services sector between 1991 and 1999. By utilising stochastic frontier methodology, we surprisingly find that overpayment levels are large at around 30 per cent and that there is no evidence of a decline in overpayment levels over the testable period
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