Matching Well-Being to Merit:The Example of Punishment

In this paper, I explore our common-sense thinking about the relation between moral value, moral merit, and well-being. Starting from Ross’s observation that welfarist axiologies ignore our intuitions about desert, I focus on axiologies that take moral merit and well-being to be independent determinants of value. I distinguish three ways in which these axiologies can be formulated, and I then consider their application to the issue of punishment. The objection that they recommend penalties in circumstances in which intuitively we would judge them to be unjustified is examined, and I suggest that it can be met by incorporating temporal information into the way in which value, well-being and moral merit are linked.

Getting priorities straight: Risk assessment and decision-making in the improvement of inherited disorders in pedigree dogs

The issue of inherited disorders in pedigree dogs is not a recent phenomenon and reports of suspected genetic defects associated with breeding practices date back to Charles Darwin's time. In recent years, much information on the array of inherited defects has been assimilated and the true extent of the problem has come to light. Historically, the direction of research funding in the field of canine genetic disease has been largely influenced by the potential transferability of findings to human medicine, economic benefit and importance of dogs for working purposes. More recently, the argument for a more canine welfare-orientated approach has been made, targeting research efforts at the alleviation of the most suffering in the greatest number of animals.

Wild-type measles virus infection of primary epithelial cells occurs via the basolateral surface without syncytium formation or release of infectious virus

The lymphotropic and myelotropic nature of wild-type measles virus (wt-MV) is well recognized, with dendritic cells and lymphocytes expressing the MV receptor CD150 mediating systemic spread of the virus. Infection of respiratory epithelial cells has long been considered crucial for entry of MV into the body. However, the lack of detectable CD150 on these cells raises the issue of their importance in the pathogenesis of measles. This study utilized a combination of in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo model systems to characterize the susceptibility of epithelial cells to wt-MV of proven pathogenicity. Low numbers of MV-infected epithelial cells in close proximity to underlying infected lymphocytes or myeloid cells suggested infection via the basolateral side of the epithelium in the macaque model. In primary cultures of human bronchial epithelial cells, foci of MV-infected cells were only observed following infection via the basolateral cell surface. The extent of infection in primary cells was enhanced both in vitro and in ex vivo cornea rim tissue by disrupting the integrity of the cells prior to the application of virus. This demonstrated that, whilst epithelial cells may not be the primary target cells for wt-MV, areas of epithelium in which tight junctions are disrupted can become infected using high m.o.i. The low numbers of MV-infected epithelial cells observed in vivo in conjunction with the absence of infectious virus release from infected primary cell cultures suggest that epithelial cells have a peripheral role in MV transmission.

Happiness and Well-Being of Young Carers: Extent, Nature and Correlates of Caring Among 10 and 11 Year Old School Children

Young carers often take on practical and/or emotional caring responsibilities that would normally be expected of an adult. For many of these children and young people, caring has been shown to have a detrimental effect on their lives. For example, caring at a young age appears to be associated with poor health and well-being, bullying and poorer educational outcomes. However, previous research has tended to be retrospective, carried out using small surveys of secondary school-aged children or to use qualitative methods with young people associated with caring projects. In contrast, little is known about the extent and nature of caring undertaken by younger children. This paper reports findings from a random sample survey of 10 and 11 year old children in the final year of their primary school education. 4,192 children completed the Kids’ Life and Times (KLT) online survey in 2011. Twelve percent of respondents to KLT said they helped look after someone in their household who was sick, elderly or disabled. Supporting previous qualitative research, this survey showed that children who were carers had poorer health and well-being, reported less happiness with their lives, were more likely to be bullied at school and had poorer educational aspirations and outcomes than their peers who were not carers. These findings suggest that teachers need to discuss the issue of caring with children in the classroom in a general and supportive way so that young carers feel able to confide in them and seek support if they need it.

An in vitro Study to Assess the Potential of a Unique Micro porous Algal Derived Cap Bone Void Filler in Comparison with Clinically-Used Bone Void Fillers

Macroporosity(>100µm) in bone void fillers is a known prerequisite for tissue regeneration, but recent literature has highlighted the added benefit of microporosity(0.5 - 10µm). The aim of this study was to compare the in vitro performances of a novel interconnective microporous hydroxyapatite (HA) derived from red algae to four clinically available macroporous calcium phosphate (CaP) bone void fillers. The use of algae as a starting material for this novel void filler overcomes the issue of sustainability, which overshadows continued use of scleractinian coral in the production of some commercially available materials, namely Pro-OsteonTM and Bio-Coral®. This study investigated the physicochemical properties of each bone voidfiller material using x-ray diffraction, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, inductive coupled plasma, and nitrogen gas absorption and mercury porosimetry. Biochemical analysis, XTT, picogreen and alkaline phosphatase assays were used to evaluate the biological performances of the five materials. Results showed that algal HA is non-toxic to human foetal osteoblast (hFOB) cells and supports cell proliferation and differentiation. The preliminary in vitro testing of microporous algal-HA suggests that it is comparable to the four clinically approved macroporous bone void fillers tested. The results demonstrate that microporous algal HA has good potential for use in vivo and in new tissue engineered strategies for hard tissue repair.

The Library of Essays on Law and Privacy

Privacy has now become a major topic not only in law but in computing, psychology, economics and social studies, and the explosion in scholarship has made it difficult for the student to traverse the field and identify the significant issues across the many disciplines. This series brings together a collection of significant papers with a multi-disciplinary approach which enable the reader to navigate through the complexities of the issues and make sense of the prolific scholarship published in this field.

The three volumes in this series address different themes: an anthropological approach to what privacy means in a cultural context; the issue of state surveillance where the state must both protect the individual and protect others from that individual and also protect itself; and, finally, what privacy might mean in a world where government and commerce collect data incessantly. The regulation of privacy is continually being called for and these papers help enable understanding of the ethical rationales behind the choices made in the sphere of regulation of privacy.

The articles presented in each of these collections have been chosen for the quality of their scholarship and their utility to the researcher, and feature a variety of approaches. The articles which debate the technical context of privacy are accessible to those from the arts and humanities; overall, the breadth of approach taken in the choice of articles has created a series which is an invaluable and important resource for lecturers, researchers and student.

Undecaprenyl phosphate recycling comes out of age

The recycling of the lipid carrier undecaprenyl-phosphate (Und-P) requires the dephosphorylation of Und-PP, a reaction proposed to occur at the external or periplasmic side of the bacterial cell membrane. In this issue of Molecular Microbiology, experiments based on the analysis of lipopolysaccharide modifications in Escherichia coli demonstrate that the phosphorylation of lipid A at position 1 is catalysed by the membrane enzyme LpxT (formerly YeiU). This enzyme specifically transfers the distal phosphate group from Und-PP to lipid A 1-phosphate to produce lipid A 1-diphosphate. Furthermore, this reaction requires a functionally intact MsbA protein, which catalyses the transfer of lipid A across the membrane, confirming that the LpxT-mediated lipid A modification occurs on the periplasmic side of the membrane. These observations provide a novel and unexpected link between periplasmic lipid A modifications and the Und-PP recycling pathway.

Educating the dental team:exploring perceptions of roles and identities

Interprofessional education (IPE) should help to promote a team-based approach to professional practice but there are barriers to its implementation including professional identity. The aim of this study was to use a qualitative research methodology to explore dental and dental care professional (DCP) students' perceptions of professional roles and identities in the dental team. Data were collected by means of focus groups from a purposive sample of dental and DCP students and were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using an explanatory framework. Five common themes emerged around the issue of professional roles and identity in the dental team. The results indicate that professional identity was an important factor in team development and was determined by direct responsibility for patient care and by the amount of clinical experience acquired. Professional identity within a team context was perceived as different from professional identity per se. Dental students were found to lack confidence in their role as team leaders which was related to their lack of knowledge of team roles, responsibilities and experience. The role of the dental technician was perceived as 'outside' the dental team due to lack of patient interaction.

A Contextual Analysis of the Council of Europe's Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women

This article examines the Council of Europe’s recent Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women. The focus of this paper is on the specific issue of domestic violence. The article seeks to place the Convention in the context of other developments as regards the analysis of domestic violence as a human rights issue.

Policy difference and policy ownership under UK devolution: social housing policy in Northern Ireland

This paper assesses the impact of UK devolution on social housing policy in Northern Ireland from 1999 until 2011, with a particular focus on the administration from May 2007 until April 2011, the first in which the elected elements of the process functioned for the entire period. Housing is one of the responsibilities of the Minister for Social Development. Northern Ireland has had a political commitment to the provision of good quality social housing for many years, both before and after the 1998 Good Friday/ Belfast Agreement and the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive in 1999.
The paper begins with an analysis of factors contributing to policy difference within the United Kingdom under the 1999 devolution settlement, noting that these factors may contribute either to policy convergence or divergence between the four UK jurisdictions. There follow reflections on the concept of ‘policy ownership’ in multi-level states and the benefits of this analytical approach for consideration of housing policy under UK devolution. A review of social housing policy since 1999 is followed by discussion of three key issues from the 2007-11 administration: the governance of social housing; the procurement of new social housing; and improving access to shared space and a shared future. The paper concludes that, in Northern Ireland, the 2007-11 administration marked a transition between a technocratic past and the future policy ownership of the social housing policy field by locally elected politicians. Reflections on wider implications for UK social policy, for UK devolution, and for the complex governance structures of devolved and federal states are also included.

Effect-based proteomic detection of growth promoter abuse

Unregulated growth promoter use in food-producing animals is an issue of concern both from food safety and animal welfare perspectives. However, the monitoring of such practices is analytically challenging due to the concerted actions of users to evade detection. Techniques based on the monitoring of biological responses to exogenous administrations have been proposed as more sensitive methods to identify treated animals. This study has, for the first time, profiled plasma proteome responses in bovine animals to treatment with nortestosterone decanoate and 17 beta-oestradiol benzoate, followed by dexamethasone administration. Two-dimensional fluorescence differential in-gel electrophoresis analysis revealed a series of hepatic and acute-phase proteins within plasma whose levels were up- or down-regulated within phases of the treatment regime. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) immuno-assays were developed to quantify responses of identified protein markers during the experimental treatment study with a view to developing methods which can be used as screening tools for growth promoter abuse detection. SPR analysis demonstrated the potential for plasma proteins to be used as indicative measures of growth promoter administrations and concludes that the sensitivity and robustness of any detection approach based on plasma proteome analysis would benefit from examination of a range of proteins representative of diverse biological processes rather being reliant on specific individual markers.

On the γ-ray emission of Type Ia supernovae

A multidimension, time-dependent Monte Carlo code is used to compute sample ?-ray spectra to explore whether unambiguous constraints could be obtained from ?-ray observations of Type Ia supernovae. Both spherical and aspherical geometries are considered and it is shown that moderate departures from sphericity can produce viewing-angle effects that are at least as significant as those caused by the variation of key parameters in 1D models. Thus, ?-ray data could, in principle, carry some geometrical information, and caution should be applied when discussing the value of ?-ray data based only on 1D explosion models. In light of the limited sensitivity of current ?-ray observatories, the computed theoretical spectra are studied to revisit the issue of whether useful constraints could be obtained for moderately nearby objects. The most useful ?-ray measurements are likely to be of the light curve and time-dependent hardness ratios, but sensitivity higher than currently available, particularly at relatively hard energies (~2-3 MeV), is desirable. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 RAS.

Demos and Denomination::flags, fealty, and the political ontology of protests in Northern Ireland

This paper will examine some of the ways in which processes of denomination
have shaped Northern Irish politics before and after the ‘Belfast’, or ‘Good Friday
Agreement’ of 1998. We concentrate on the formation of the ‘Unionist’ or ‘Loyalist
community’, principally because the flag protests of 2012-2013 have brought the
issue of this community identity to the fore again. The flag is part of a whole
machinery of what we, in this paper, will call ‘denomination’ in Northern Irish
politics and elsewhere. The religious overtones of the term are neither accidental
nor incidental. Acts of denomination posit (assertively, authoritatively) a
collective identity, conceived and constituted ontologically, as an existent entity,
and stake a claim to a whole territory.

Physical and numerical constraints in source modeling for finite difference simulation of room acoustics

In finite difference time domain simulation of room acoustics, source functions are subject to various constraints. These depend on the way sources are injected into the grid and on the chosen parameters of the numerical scheme being used. This paper addresses the issue of selecting and designing sources for finite difference simulation, by first reviewing associated aims and constraints, and evaluating existing source models against these criteria. The process of exciting a model is generalized by introducing a system of three cascaded filters, respectively, characterizing the driving pulse, the source mechanics, and the injection of the resulting source function into the grid. It is shown that hard, soft, and transparent sources can be seen as special cases within this unified approach. Starting from the mechanics of a small pulsating sphere, a parametric source model is formulated by specifying suitable filters. This physically constrained source model is numerically consistent, does not scatter incoming waves, and is free from zero- and low-frequency artifacts. Simulation results are employed for comparison with existing source formulations in terms of meeting the spectral and temporal requirements on the outward propagating wave.

Pull-out behaviour of steel grid soil reinforcement embedded in silty sand

This paper investigates the pull-out behaviour (particularly the bearing resistance) of a steel grid reinforcement embedded in silty sand using laboratory tests and numerical analyses. It is demonstrated that the various common analytical equations for calculating the bearing component of pull-out resistance give a wide range of calculated values, up to about 200% disparity. The disparity will increase further if the issue of whether to use the peak or critical state friction angle is brought in. Furthermore, these equations suggest that the bearing resistance factor, N, is only a function of soil friction angle which is not consistent with some design guidelines. In this investigation, a series of large scale laboratory pull-out tests under different test pressures were conducted. The test results unambiguously confirmed that the N factor is a function of test pressure. A modified equation for calculating N is also proposed. To have more in-depth understanding of the pull-out behaviour, the tests were modelled numerically. The input parameters for the numerical analysis were obtained from laboratory triaxial tests. The analysis results were compared with the experimental results. Good agreement between experimental and numerical results was achieved if the strain-softening behaviour from peak strength to critical state condition was captured by the soil model used. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.