Composer in Interview: Pierre Boulez

Interview with composer Pierre Boulez

A genome-wide association study identifies new susceptibility loci for esophageal adenocarcinoma and Barrett's esophagus

Esophageal adenocarcinoma is a cancer with rising incidence and poor survival. Most such cancers arise in a specialized intestinal metaplastic epithelium, which is diagnostic of Barrett's esophagus. In a genome-wide association study, we compared esophageal adenocarcinoma cases (n = 2,390) and individuals with precancerous Barrett's esophagus (n = 3,175) with 10,120 controls in 2 phases. For the combined case group, we identified three new associations. The first is at 19p13 (rs10419226: P = 3.6 × 10(-10)) in CRTC1 (encoding CREB-regulated transcription coactivator), whose aberrant activation has been associated with oncogenic activity. A second is at 9q22 (rs11789015: P = 1.0 × 10(-9)) in BARX1, which encodes a transcription factor important in esophageal specification. A third is at 3p14 (rs2687201: P = 5.5 × 10(-9)) near the transcription factor FOXP1, which regulates esophageal development. We also refine a previously reported association with Barrett's esophagus near the putative tumor suppressor gene FOXF1 at 16q24 and extend our findings to now include esophageal adenocarcinoma.

Large-scale association analysis identifies new risk loci for coronary artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the commonest cause of death. Here, we report an association analysis in 63,746 CAD cases and 130,681 controls identifying 15 loci reaching genome-wide significance, taking the number of susceptibility loci for CAD to 46, and a further 104 independent variants (r(2)

Famine and land, 1845-80

While historians once tended to displace the Famine from a pivotal position in modern Irish history, more recent research emphasizes its centrality, and focuses upon the controversial issue of state responsibility. Mortality levels from the Famine place it, proportionately, as one of the most devastating recorded human catastrophes. Official British policy towards Ireland spanned two governments, those of Robert Peel and John Russell, with historians taking a more emollient view of the former: in fact there were significant continuities between the two. The legacy of the Famine was uneven, with commercial and technological advance and the consolidation of both the farming interest and landlordism. On the other hand, recent research emphasizes evidence of continuing economic uncertainty, particularly in the West, together with ongoing landlord-tenant tensions. Rural insecurities, crystallized by the poor harvests of 185964, underlay the post-Famine years, and fed into the politicization of the later 1870s.

Operationalizing the Comparative International Human Rights Law Method: A Case Study of CEDAW in National Courts

In this chapter, I focus on how the example of CEDAW illustrates the methodological and conceptual difficulties that future work in comparative international human is likely to encounter. Despite the challenges, I suggest that the worked example of CEDAW has raised interesting lines for empirical analysis, and additional perspectives which may enrich normative inquiry, sufficient to justify comparative international human rights law being regarded as likely to give rise to insights that might not otherwise have emerged, and therefore to be as an approach worth pursuing in the future.

Comparative International Human Rights Law

This chapter locates of international human rights in current discussion of comparative international law, and distinguishes comparative international human rights law from both the 'fragmentation' literature, and from comparative constitutional rights discourse.