Distal volcanic ash layers in the Lateglacial Interstadial (GI-1): problems of stratigraphic discrimination

A new Icelandic ash layer has been detected in mid-Interstadial sediments in a number of Scottish Lateglacial sequences and has been named the Penifiler Tephra. It is rhyolitic in composition and possesses a chemistry, which is similar to the Borrobol Tephra of early Lateglacial Interstadial age, which also occurs in a number of these same sequences. Where the Borrobol Tephra has been identified in these sequences it consistently exhibits a diffuse distribution accompanied in some cases by stratigraphic bimodality. A number of sedimentological and taphonomic factors are considered in order to account for this distribution. One possibility is that these distributions are produced by taphonomic factors. Another possibility is that the Borrobol Tephra may not be the product of a single Icelandic eruption, but of two events closely spaced in time. In at least two of the sequences investigated in this study, basaltic shards were found in association with the Penifiler and Borrobol tephras, suggesting either a basaltic phase associated with these eruptions, or coincident eruptions from a separate basaltic volcanic centre. The discovery of the new Penifiler Tephra makes a contribution to the regional tephrostratigraphic framework, and provides an additional isochron for assessing the synchroneity of palaeoenvironmental changes during the Interstadial. The true stratigraphic nature and age of the Borrobol Tephra, however, remains unresolved and, therefore, its use as an isochron is more problematic. The possible occurrence of basaltic populations may strengthen correlations with basaltic tephras recently detected in the NGRIP ice-core.

The statistical significance of randomized controlled trial results is frequently fragile: A case for a Fragility Index

Objectives

A P-value <0.05 is one metric used to evaluate the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). We wondered how often statistically significant results in RCTs may be lost with small changes in the numbers of outcomes.

Study Design and Setting

A review of RCTs in high-impact medical journals that reported a statistically significant result for at least one dichotomous or time-to-event outcome in the abstract. In the group with the smallest number of events, we changed the status of patients without an event to an event until the P-value exceeded 0.05. We labeled this number the Fragility Index; smaller numbers indicated a more fragile result.

Results

The 399 eligible trials had a median sample size of 682 patients (range: 15-112,604) and a median of 112 events (range: 8-5,142); 53% reported a P-value <0.01. The median Fragility Index was 8 (range: 0-109); 25% had a Fragility Index of 3 or less. In 53% of trials, the Fragility Index was less than the number of patients lost to follow-up.

Conclusion

The statistically significant results of many RCTs hinge on small numbers of events. The Fragility Index complements the P-value and helps identify less robust results. 

Age discrimination before the ECJ - Conceptual and theoretical issues

Although only addressed by EU law from 2000, age discrimination has been the theme of quite a few cases before the Court of Justice, with a high proportion decided by the Grand Chamber recently. This is due to the conceptual and theoretical challenges that a prohibition to use age as differentiating factor poses. After all, age has been an important stratifier used to synchronize life courses through welfare State regimes in Europe. Partly due to these traditions, there are stereotypes associated with old age, and young age, that in turn lead to disadvantage in employment. For the same reason, age discrimination frequently intersects with discrimination on other grounds, such as sex, race or disability. EU legislation on age discrimination has sought to accommodate the traditional role of age in employment policy by allowing wider justifications than for other forms of discrimination. This leads to contradictions within the larger field of discrimination law, which may even threaten to dilute its efficiency. This article analyses how recent case law of the Court of Justice, and in particular its Grand Chamber, deals with the theoretical challenges posed by these conflicting demands on age discrimination and on discrimination law at large.

'Sorry I meant the patient's left side': impact of distraction on right/left discrimination

Context Medical students can have difficulty in distinguishing left from right. Many infamous medical errors have occurred when a procedure has been performed on the wrong side, such as in the removal of the wrong kidney. Clinicians encounter many distractions during their work. There is limited information on how these affect performance. 
Objectives Using a neuropsychological paradigm, we aim to elucidate the impacts of different types of distraction on left–right (LR) discrimination ability. 
Methods Medical students were recruited to a study with four arms: (i) control arm (no distraction); (ii) auditory distraction arm (continuous ambient ward noise); (iii) cognitive distraction arm (interruptions with clinical cognitive tasks), and (iv) auditory and cognitive distraction arm. Participants’ LR discrimination ability was measured using the validated Bergen Left–Right Discrimination Test (BLRDT). Multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyse the impacts of the different forms of distraction on participants’ performance on the BLRDT. Additional analyses looked at effects of demographics on performance and correlated participants’ self-perceived LR discrimination ability and their actual performance. 
Results A total of 234 students were recruited. Cognitive distraction had a greater negative impact on BLRDT performance than auditory distraction. Combined auditory and cognitive distraction had a negative impact on performance, but only in the most difficult LR task was this negative impact found to be significantly greater than that of cognitive distraction alone. There was a significant medium-sized correlation between perceived LR discrimination ability and actual overall BLRDT performance. 
Conclusions
Distraction has a significant impact on performance and multifaceted approaches are required to reduce LR errors. Educationally, greater emphasis on the linking of theory and clinical application is required to support patient safety and human factor training in medical school curricula. Distraction has the potential to impair an individual's ability to make accurate LR decisions and students should be trained from undergraduate level to be mindful of this.

EU Non-Discrimination Law and Intersectionality:investigating the triangle of racial, gender and disability discrimination

This book contributes to a critical reflection of current legislative and jurisprudential developments in Non-Discrimination Law, focusing on the European Union. The book is focused on intersectionality between gender, race and disability and the question of whether, and to what extent, this intersection can be adequately addressed in (EU) law. The discussion rests on two basic assumptions. First, the multiplication of 'discrimination grounds' in EU law and other legal regimes should not result in a dilution of the demands of equality law. Accordingly, the book focuses on the three key grounds - race, gender and disability. These constitute nodes around which other discrimination grounds can be grouped. Second, any multi-ground non-discrimination law framework needs to engage with the question of discrimination on several grounds. This book provides a critical evaluation of some of the problems presented by such intersectionality and an opportunity to explore the issues in depth. This collection offers some new proposals relating to the regrouping of identity categories and to the general approach to socio-legal research in the field. It also contains a comparative section, which expands on practical experiences with intersectionality and law, and a section dedicated to juridical responses to intersectionality.

The book will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics and those working in the area of EU non-discrimination law and policy.

Organising EU non-discrimination law around the nodes of ‘race’ gender and disability?

EU non-discrimination law has seen a proliferation of discrimination grounds from 2000. Dis-crimination on grounds of gender (in the field of equal pay) and on grounds of nationality (generally within the scope of application of EU law) were the only prohibited forms of discrimination in EU law, until the Treaty of Amsterdam empowered the Community to legislate in order to combat discrimination on grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (Article 13 EC). Proliferation of non-discrimination grounds is also characteristic for international and national non-discrimination law. As such, proliferation of grounds results in an increase in potential cases of “multiple discrimination” and the danger of diluting the demands of equality law by ever more multiplication of grounds. The hierarchy of equality, which has been so widely criticised in EU law, is a signifier of the latter danger.
This chapter proposes to structure the confusing field of non-discrimination grounds by organising them around nodes of discrimination fields. It will first reflect different ways of establishing hierarchies between grounds. This will be followed by a recount of different (narrow and wide) reading of grounds. A comprehensive reading of the grounds gender, ‘race’ and disability as establishing overlapping fields of discrimination grounds will be mapped out, with some examples for practical uses.

Enforcing Employment Discrimination Law - Potential Transplants from Italy to Britain and Vice Versa?

While substantive EU non-discrimination law has been harmonized in great detail, the enforcement regime for EU non-discrimination law consists merely of a few isolated elements. Thus, the pursuit of unity through harmonization in substantive EU law is accompanied by considerable regulatory autonomy for Member States in securing the efficiency of those laws, reflecting the diversity of national enforcement regimes, and resulting in twenty-seven different national models for enforcing discrimination law in labour markets. This article pursues two connected arguments through a comparison of rules for enforcing non-discrimination law in labour markets in Britain and Italy. First, it argues that enforcing non-discrimination law in labour markets is best achieved when responsive governance, repressive regulation and mainstreaming equality law are combined. Second, the article submits that diversity of national legal orders within the EU is not necessarily detrimental, as it offers opportunities for mutual learning across legal systems.The notion of mutual learning across systems is proposed in order to analyse the transnational migration of legal ideas within the EU. Such migration has been criticized in debates about the ‘transplantation’ of legal concepts or legal irritation through foreign legal ideas, in particular by comparative labour lawyers. However, EU harmonization policies in the field of non-discrimination law aim to impact on national labour laws. The article develops the notion of mutual learning across legal systems in order to establish conditions for transnational migration of legal ideas, and demonstrates the viability of these concepts by applying them to the field of non-discrimination law

Short comment: To Nail a Jellyfish? Finding a progressive agenda for EU anti-discrimination law

The title of this short (about 4500 words) intervention translates to "To Nail a Jellyfish? Finding a progressive agenda for EU anti-discrimination law". I engage with those criticising EU anti-discrimination law as yet another emanation of the EU's "neo-liberal" nature which fails to establish a viable social policy regime. I criticise this in two directions. First, I take issue with the theory that anti-discrimination law and policy has to be part of social policy. Actually, the field has a mission which differs from social policy, in that it addresses disadvantage resulting from othering, combating stereotypes as well as promoting accomodation of difference. Second, I show how the critique of judicialisation of policy is not unique to anti-discrimination law and policy. The so called turn to rights based employment law has been criticised under this mantra by those who fear that collective labour law mechanisms will become less prevalent. Further, those who have engaged with anti-discrimination law for a much longer time than those criticising it have also devised means to overcome the individualistic tendencies of rights adjudication. They have (partly successfully) argued in favour of establishing equality bodies and creating positive obligations. Thus, the critique neglects the field it takes on, and does not accept the fact that anti-discrimination law and policy must be considered a field in its own right instead of the servant of social law and policy.
Now, this is more a summary than an abstract - since I realise that not everyone reads German.

Cases, Materials and Text on National, Supranational and International Non-Discrimination Law

This casebook, the result of the collaborative efforts of a panel of experts from various EU Member States, is the latest in the Ius Commune Casebook series developed at the Universities of Maastricht and Leuven. The book provides a comprehensive and skilfully designed resource for students, practitioners, researchers, public officials, NGOs, consumer organisations and the judiciary. In common with earlier books in the series, this casebook presents cases and other materials (legislative materials, international and European materials, excerpts from books or articles). As non-discrimination law is a comparatively new subject, the chapters search for and develop the concepts of discrimination law on the basis of a wide variety of young and often still emerging case law and legislation. The result is a comprehensive textbook with materials from a wide variety of EU Member States. The book is entirely in English (i.e. materials are translated where not available in English). At the end of each chapter a comparative overview ties the material together, with emphasis, where appropriate, on existing or emerging general principles in the legal systems within Europe.
The book illustrates the distinct relationship between international, European and national legislation in the field of non-discrimination law. It covers the grounds of discrimination addressed in the Racial Equality and Employment Equality Directives, as well as non-discrimination law relating to gender. In so doing, it covers the law of a large number of EU Member States, alongside some international comparisons.
The Ius Commune Casebook on Non-Discrimination Law
- provides practitioners with ready access to primary and secondary legal material needed to assist them in crafting test case strategies.
- provides the judiciary with the tools needed to respond sensitively to such cases.
- provides material for teaching non-discrimination law to law and other students.
- provides a basis for ongoing research on non-discrimination law.
- provides an up-to-date overview of the implementation of the Directives and of the state of the law.
This Casebook is the result of a project which has been supported by a grant from the European Commission's Anti-Discrimination Programme.

Proportionality in Age Discrimination Cases - a Model Suitable for Socially Embedded Rights

This chapter discusses the use of proportionality in age discrimination cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union. It argues that the Court does not use this concept systematically - indeed it exposes some contradiction that make the case law seem arbitrary - and proposes a more fruitful use of the principle, which is in line with a modern conception of human rights. The chapter argues that the principle of proportionality stems from the time when human rights served the recently liberated burgeois elite in guarding their rights to property and liberty against the state. Today, states not only respect human rights (which is fully sufficient for this elite, who can rely on their inherited wealth to fend for themselves). They also protect and promote human rights, and these activities are a precondition for human rights to be practically relevant for the whole population. This also means that state activity, which is experienced as a limitation of rights to property and liberty by some, may constitute a measure to promote and protect human rights of others. In employment law - the only field where the EU ban on age discrimination is applied - this is a typical situation. If such a situation occurs, the principle of proportionality must be applied in a bifurcated way.It is not sufficient that the limitation of property rights is proportionate for the achievement of a public policy aim. If the aim of public policy is to enable the effective use of human rights, the limitation of the state action must be proportionate to the protection and promotion of those human rights. It is argued that the principle of proportionality is superior to less structures balancing acts (e.g. the Wednesbury principle), if it is applied both ways. Going over to the field of age discrimination, the chapter identifies a number of potentially colliding aims pursued in this field. Banning age discrimination may relate to genuine aims of anti-discrimination law if bias against older or very young workers is addressed. However, the EU ban of discrimination against all ages also serves to restructure employment law and policy to the age of flexibilisation, replacing the synchronisation principle that has been predominant for the welfare states of the 20th century. The former aim is related to human rights protection, while the latter aim is not (at least not always). This has consequences for applying the proportionality test. The chapter proposes different ways to argue the most difficult age discrimination cases, where anti-discrimination rationales and flexibilisation rationales clash

Development of a novel continuous statistical modelling technique for detecting the adulteration of extra virgin olive oil with hazelnut oil by using spectroscopic data

The adulteration of extra virgin olive oil with other vegetable oils is a certain problem with economic and health consequences. Current official methods have been proved insufficient to detect such adulterations. One of the most concerning and undetectable adulterations with other vegetable oils is the addition of hazelnut oil. The main objective of this work was to develop a novel dimensionality reduction technique able to model oil mixtures as a part of an integrated pattern recognition solution. This final solution attempts to identify hazelnut oil adulterants in extra virgin olive oil at low percentages based on spectroscopic chemical fingerprints. The proposed Continuous Locality Preserving Projections (CLPP) technique allows the modelling of the continuous nature of the produced in house admixtures as data series instead of discrete points. This methodology has potential to be extended to other mixtures and adulterations of food products. The maintenance of the continuous structure of the data manifold lets the better visualization of this examined classification problem and facilitates a more accurate utilisation of the manifold for detecting the adulterants.