Propagating waves have been observed in various in vivo and in vitro preparations but their role still remains obscure. Propagating waves were also seen in physiological conditions, such as in primary and secondary visual cortical areas of awake monkey (Muller et al., Nature Commun. 2014), suggesting they may play a role in vision. Here, using voltage-sensitive dye imaging in awake monkey V1, we show that colliding propagating waves always sum sublinearly and mediate a suppressive effect. By using a probabilistic decoder, we show that this suppression enables to dis-ambiguate stimuli. These features were also captured by computational models, using a mean-field approach. The model suggests that the suppressive effect depends on two ingredients, the fact that inhibition has a higher gain than excitation, and the fact that they combine via conductance-based interactions. We conclude that propagating cortical waves are involved in the processing of visual information.
come any time between 9-11am with questions or suggestions
Brigitta Stockinger obtained her PhD in Biology at the University of Mainz and then did postdoctoral studies in London and Cambridge and Heidelberg. In 1985 she became a member of the Basel Institute for Immunology where she stayed until 1991. In 1991 Gitta became a group leader in the Division of Molecular Immunology of the Medical Research Council National Institute for Medical Research (now part of the Francis Crick Institute). Her research initially focused on immune tolerance using T cell receptor transgenic mouse models as well as immunological memory of CD4 T cells, their generation and survival and more recently on deciphering the physiological functions of an environmental sensor, the transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) in the immune system. Gitta obtained an ERC Advanced Investigator grant in 2009 to study physiological functions of AhR and in 2013 and 2018 was awarded Wellcome Senior Investigator Grant that will continue and expand the investigation of AhR in innate and adaptive immune cells as well as in epithelial cells of the intestinal barrier. She became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2005, an EMBO fellow in 2008 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2013.
As a new international academic society, ISBS seeks to develop the study of Bhutanese culture, life and nature. The society will endeavour to encourage, inspire and motivate interest in lesser known aspects of Bhutanese society, as well as to promote and strengthen areas of existing scholarship. The conference will feature papers on a range of topics from linguistics to history to natural science to Buddhism to economics and business. As the ISBS seeks to support Bhutanese scholars, both junior and established, this conference will feature their voices alongside international scholars.
An afternoon of two Distinguished Public Lectures on Bhutan, by the Former Prime Minister of Bhutan, His Excellency Dasho Tshering Tobgay, and the President of the Center for Bhutan Studies & Gross National Happiness, Dasho Karma Ura. 3:00-4:30pm His Excellency Dasho Tshering Tobgay will speak on The First Ten Years of Democracy: Reflections from Bhutan. 5:00-6:30pm Dasho Karma Ura will give a lecture on Development with Integrity: Bhutan’s development and its Gross National Happiness Index, chaired by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Professor Louise Richardson. Discussants include Martine Durand (Chief Statistician, OECD) and James Foster (Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. This event is part of a larger conference taking place in Oxford during 8-10 January 2019. The International Society of Bhutan Studies (ISBS) launch conference is taking place at Magdalen College, seeking to develop the study of Bhutanese culture, life and nature in all aspects and encourage, inspire and motivate interest in lesser known aspects and promote and strengthen the areas of existing concentration. ISBS exists primarily to encourage academic exchange, among both Bhutanese and foreign scholars, and secondarily to contribute to the happiness of future generations. Please visit the conference website to register: https://www.isbsbhutan.org/isbs-launch-conference/
An afternoon of two Distinguished Public Lectures on Bhutan, by the Former Prime Minister of Bhutan, His Excellency Dasho Tshering Tobgay, and the President of the Center for Bhutan Studies & Gross National Happiness, Dasho Karma Ura. 3:00-4:30pm His Excellency Dasho Tshering Tobgay will speak on The First Ten Years of Democracy: Reflections from Bhutan. 5:00-6:30pm Dasho Karma Ura will give a lecture on Development with Integrity: Bhutan’s development and its Gross National Happiness Index, chaired by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Professor Louise Richardson. Discussants include Martine Durand (Chief Statistician, OECD) and James Foster (Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. This event is part of a larger conference taking place in Oxford during 8-10 January 2019. The International Society of Bhutan Studies (ISBS) launch conference is taking place at Magdalen College, seeking to develop the study of Bhutanese culture, life and nature in all aspects and encourage, inspire and motivate interest in lesser known aspects and promote and strengthen the areas of existing concentration. ISBS exists primarily to encourage academic exchange, among both Bhutanese and foreign scholars, and secondarily to contribute to the happiness of future generations. Please visit the conference website to register: https://www.isbsbhutan.org/isbs-launch-conference/
Another indispensable EQUATOR workshop for early career biomedical and clinical researchers led by Dr Jen de Beyer Create the perfect professional biography for your website, then convert it into a short conference bio. Jen de Beyer is CSM’s science writing, dissemination, and publication specialist. She’s here to help your research reach its full potential through clear, complete writing that targets the right audience. She develops resources on how to write fantastic health research articles and teaches science writing skills through the UK EQUATOR Centre. This free workshop is open to University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes staff and students, but we do request that you book a spot. For notification of booking opening and announcement of other EQUATOR courses in Oxford, please join our mailing list by sending a blank email to equator-oxford-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk or email Caroline Struthers (caroline.struthers@csm.ox.ac.uk).
Cardiology: "Coronary disease in diabetes – sweet memories", Prof Robin Choudhury -- Acute General Medicine Firm B: "Time for precision medicine in sepsis?", Prof Julian Knight -- Chair: TBA
The Research Techniques Day is now up on the skills website. We need to know numbers for catering so please register. It is straightforward and there is no complication of refundable payment. https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/skillstraining/calendar/research-techniques-day It is primarily aimed at first year D. Phil students but scientists of all levels attend. It is an enjoyable day and with lots of new speakers for 2019, it will broaden our horizons on expertise and techniques available throughout the Medical Division.
Oxford Viromics is an initiative among Oxford researchers to promote accessibility of virus genomics data and methods for its analysis. The initiative has existed formally for a couple of years, and now seems a good time to bring people together in a Symposium to showcase progress and think about where we could go from here. The idea of the Symposium is to bring together all the people doing virus genomics in Oxford. The aims are to examine how virus genome data can begin to address problems posed by viruses, and how we generate the data and analyse it. The overarching theme is really one of optimism that we are beginning to assemble the required tools and do the important studies. The event is primarily intended for Oxford researchers and clinicians, but others are welcome. Oxford Viromics Symposium - 11 January 2019 Oxford Martin School Agenda – Register by 7th January 2019 on: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxford-viromics-symposium-tickets-53134539839 0930 Tea and Coffee on Arrival 1000 Welcome and Introduction Session 1 - Clinical Translation Chair: TBC 1020 Cyndi Goh and Tanya Golubchik Diagnostic Metagenomics in CHIMES and GAINS 1100 Tamyo Mbisa Challenges of introducing viral WGS in the clinical pathway 1120 Craig Thompson Deja flu: the antigenic evolution of influenza 1140 David Smith Using whole-genome sequencing of the hepatitis C virus to identify anti-viral resistance 1200 Lunch Session II - Epidemiology and Public Health Chair: Ellie Barnes 1240 David Bonsall A comprehensive genomic solution for HIV surveillance and individualised patient care 1300 Christophe Fraser What will it take to control HIV? Insights from viral genomics 1340 Sarah Hill Real-time, portable sequencing and genomic epidemiology of arboviruses 1400 Gu-Lung Lin Targeted metagenomics in RESCEU study: Whole genome reconstruction of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and co-detection of other pathogens in clinical samples 1420 Philippa Matthews HBV - TBC 1440 Afternoon Tea Session III - Virus in host studies Chair: TBC 1500 Katrina Lythgoe Within-host evolution and transmission of chronic viruses 1520 Mathew Jones Good things come to those who bait: Parallel HIV proviral DNA sequence and integration site analysis 1540 Nick Grayson In utero mother-to-child transmission of HIV in KwaZulu-Natal Session IV - Methods Chair: TBC 1600 Peter Simmonds Virus taxonomy in the age of metagenomics 1615 Mariateresa de Cesare Technology outlook 1630 Discussion Should methods inform questions, or questions Inform methods? 1700 Close
In this paper, I discuss some of the problems raised by the performance of antagonistic direct action in the recent trial of the Stansted 15. What happens to direct action where it is publicly conducted qua direct action, where activists are arrested, and where they are prosecuted? In performing direct actions, activists must deal with material configurations of power and with differentially structured political and judicial cultures; they are also, evidently, social agents who are capable of experiential learning and tactical adaptation, and in constructing meanings for their actions. How these actions are democratic, or understand democracy, and the role of the state, is crucial for our conceptual understanding of what an action is, of how it formulates critique; it is also crucial for our understanding of the instability of the meaning of actions, and the processes through which they become stabilised and acquire social meaning.
Forthcoming
Selection to higher education typically includes the use of information about students’ attainment, or predicted attainment, in school-leaving examinations such as A-levels .For selective universities and competitive undergraduate degree courses this information provides insufficient scope for discriminating between candidates, furthermore candidates are applying increasingly with qualifications from different international educational settings. To help provide a common point of reference across all candidates for a particular course, tests have been introduced as part of the admissions process in many courses at the University of Oxford. This project first explored the relationships between student characteristics and test performance with Oxford University admissions data before turning to study the effects of test preparation on TSA and BMAT for students applying to Oxford. How students prepare for admissions tests and whether this preparation has an impact on their performance in the test is an under-researched area. This seminar is number one in a five-part public seminar series on ‘Student Access to University’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Jo-Anne Baird (Director, Department of Education) and Simon Marginson (Professor of Higher Education, Department of Education). The series forms part of the department’s 100th Anniversary celebrations, marking 100 years of leading research in education. The series will be held at venues across the University and aims to encourage public discussion and move access forward by bringing a research-based treatment to it. Registration is required. SEMINAR SPEAKERS This seminar will be chaired by Rebecca Surender (Pro Vice-Chancellor – Equality and Diversity, University of Oxford). The speakers will include, Jo-Anne Baird (Director of the Department of Education), Samina Khan (Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach, University of Oxford) and Alison Matthews (Deputy Director of Undergraduate Admissions, University of Oxford). A response to the seminar will be given by Karen O’Brien (Head of the Humanities Division, University of Oxford).
Dr. Montague’s research uses human factors and human-computer interaction methodologies, design principles and theories to understand health care systems to promote safety and patient-centered care. At present, Dr. Montague explores the role of trust between people and technologies in health care work systems. She looks at organizational and design factors that effect both workers and patients with the overall goal of understanding technology mediated interactions and designing new and effective health technologies. Her lecture will discuss her work with modeling to understand how patients and providers interact in primary care environments. She will also discuss the challenges and opportunities for designing future health care systems. Enid Montague PhD, Associate Professor, College of Computing and Digital Media, DePaul University
We are delighted to welcome Dr Andy Pearce, GSK as an Expert in Residence in Drug Discovery and Development. Andy will sit within the Target Discovery Institute (TDI), Nuffield Department of Medicine, NDM Research Building on various dates during 2018/19 and be available to have non-confidential discussions and provide advice on: - Drug discovery spanning target identification and validation through to early clinical development - Routes to progress drug discovery and translational projects - Career development for early career researchers. In his role at GSK, Andy leads drug discovery projects from target validation through hit-finding and to the delivery of high quality clinical candidates, across broad disease areas, in collaboration with world-leading academic partners. Prior to joining GSK Andy worked in the Respiratory Therapy Area at Novartis, leading multidisciplinary teams and drug discovery projects delivering multiple novel targets into the portfolio and clinical candidates. Andy has experience of programs of all major target classes, of localised and oral drug delivery and both small molecule and biopharmaceutical modalities. With over 18 years of experience in target and drug discovery in academia and Pharma companies spanning target identification to early clinical development Andy is well placed to provide advice and guidance on translational research, target validation, assay development, lead optimisation and early preclinical and clinical development. A biochemist and cell biologist by training, Andy received his undergraduate degree and DPhil from the University of Oxford and undertook postdoctoral studies at the University of Birmingham, identifying and studying novel membrane receptors and their signal transduction pathways. Andy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, occasionally lectures at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and participates in career panels and workshops for scientists.
The character of wars is changing. Today, wars between nation-states have largely disappeared and armed conflicts between states and belligerent non-state actors have become predominant. But has the international community found the right answers to deal with such intrastate armed conflicts? Schulenburg will argue, no. In a future world of 11 billion people, intra-state conflicts are likely to increase. Finding better answers to address this is becoming, and will continue to be, ever more pressing. But would this be possible in a world of increasing great-power rivalries? Mr Schulenburg will discuss the shortcomings of the UN Charter to regulate foreign military interventions and paradoxes in UN peacekeeping as well as ambiguities in determining the legitimacy of embattled governments and in responding to armed non-state actors. He will review problems of interpreting self-determination and identifying national identities and describe resulting difficulties in implementing ceasefire and peace agreements or in writing national constitutions and holding elections. Michael von der Schulenburg, former UN Assistant Secretary General with political affairs with 34 experience working for the UN and the OSCE in many of the world’s trouble spots such as in Haiti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Sierra Leone with shorter assignments in Syria, Somalia, the Balkan and the Sahel. His experience involved the whole range of UN activities from development and humanitarian assistance to management, political affairs and peacekeeping. A sandwich lunch will be served at 12.45
The Hybrid View endorses utilitarianism about animals and rejects utilitarianism about humans. This view has received relatively little sustained attention in the philosophical literature. Yet, as we show, the Hybrid View underlies many widely held beliefs about zoos, pet ownership, scientific research on animal and human subjects, and agriculture. We develop the Hybrid View in rigorous detail and extract several of its main commitments. Then we examine the Hybrid View in relation to the view that human use of animals constitutes a special relationship. We show that it is intuitively plausible that our use of animals alters our moral obligations to animals. That idea is widely believed to be incompatible with the sort of utilitarian approach in animal ethics that is prescribed by the Hybrid View. To overturn that conventional wisdom, we develop two different principles concerning the moral significance of human use of animals, which we call the Partiality Principle and the Strengthening Principle. We show that the Partiality Principle is consistent with several key commitments of the Hybrid View. And, strikingly, we show that the Strengthening Principle is fully consistent with all of the main commitments of the Hybrid View. Thus we establish the surprising result that utilitarians about animals can coherently offer a robust and intuitively appealing account of the moral significance of animal use. Booking: Not required, but please arrive early to be guaranteed a place.
The DLT Programme is designed for anyone new to teaching in higher education who wishes to learn how to take a more effective, inclusive and evidence-informed approach to teaching and learning in the sciences. Graduate research students with teaching responsibilities and postdoctoral researchers with an interest in an academic career may find it particularly useful to develop their teaching skills and gain a portable qualification to enhance future employability.
Followed by questions and a discussion
Coming Soon
AICU: -- Oncology: Dr Benjamin Fairfax -- Chair: TBA
Coeliac disease is a common immune condition where susceptible individuals develop inflammation of the gut in response to gluten, a protein in wheat. Whilst genetics play an important role in the development of coeliac disease, there is evidence that an environmental trigger is required for coeliac disease to develop. Circumstantial evidence has suggested that viral infections in childhood could be that trigger, but definitive proof remains elusive. A recent study has suggested that reovirus, a virus affecting the gut that generally causes no symptoms, can trigger a condition like coeliac disease in mice under experimental conditions, however it remains unclear if this infection is associated with coeliac disease in humans. The discovery of infections that can trigger coeliac disease could have a profound impact on the prevention of the development of coeliac disease, as well as on the prevention of diseases associated with it, such as Type 1 Diabetes. We will test the association between reovirus, along with a number of other viral infections that affect the gut, and the development of coeliac disease by using stored samples from a recent study of diagnostic methods of coeliac disease in children. This large, well-described, cohort of children with and without coeliac disease provides an ideal group in which to test for an association between viral infection and coeliac disease. We will perform tests to measure antibody responses to these viruses in children with and without coeliac disease.
Coeliac disease is a common immune condition where susceptible individuals develop inflammation of the gut in response to gluten, a protein in wheat. Whilst genetics play an important role in the development of coeliac disease, there is evidence that an environmental trigger is required for coeliac disease to develop. Circumstantial evidence has suggested that viral infections in childhood could be that trigger, but definitive proof remains elusive. A recent study has suggested that reovirus, a virus affecting the gut that generally causes no symptoms, can trigger a condition like coeliac disease in mice under experimental conditions, however it remains unclear if this infection is associated with coeliac disease in humans. The discovery of infections that can trigger coeliac disease could have a profound impact on the prevention of the development of coeliac disease, as well as on the prevention of diseases associated with it, such as Type 1 Diabetes. We will test the association between reovirus, along with a number of other viral infections that affect the gut, and the development of coeliac disease by using stored samples from a recent study of diagnostic methods of coeliac disease in children. This large, well-described, cohort of children with and without coeliac disease provides an ideal group in which to test for an association between viral infection and coeliac disease. We will perform tests to measure antibody responses to these viruses in children with and without coeliac disease.
Intestinal failure, where the gut fails to absorb sufficient nutrients, is a debilitating condition which requires treatment with intravenous parenteral nutrition. Unfortunately, this treatment can be complicated by severe infections and venous blood clots, and in such circumstances intestinal transplantation can be an effective treatment. However intestinal transplantation suffers from high rates of graft rejection, as well as cases of graft versus host disease (GVHD) and has only a 60% 5-year survival. Large numbers of immune cells from the donor are transferred into an intestinal transplant, and the interactions of the immune cells from donor and recipient, the survival of donor immune cells in the transplant, and the mechanisms that allow colonisation of the transplanted tissue by recipient immune cells are not well understood. Our work will study these questions through studying intestinal immune cell populations in recipients of intestinal transplants at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust transplantation unit, one of only two centres offering adult intestinal transplantation in the United Kingdom. These results will have direct patient benefit by elucidating the mechanisms that drive graft rejection and GVHD in intestinal transplantation, and by identifying strategies that might prevent these complications. Moreover, these results may provide insights into more fundamental questions in human immunology, including the dynamics of tissue residency of immune cells in the gut.
Intestinal failure, where the gut fails to absorb sufficient nutrients, is a debilitating condition which requires treatment with intravenous parenteral nutrition. Unfortunately, this treatment can be complicated by severe infections and venous blood clots, and in such circumstances intestinal transplantation can be an effective treatment. However intestinal transplantation suffers from high rates of graft rejection, as well as cases of graft versus host disease (GVHD) and has only a 60% 5-year survival. Large numbers of immune cells from the donor are transferred into an intestinal transplant, and the interactions of the immune cells from donor and recipient, the survival of donor immune cells in the transplant, and the mechanisms that allow colonisation of the transplanted tissue by recipient immune cells are not well understood. Our work will study these questions through studying intestinal immune cell populations in recipients of intestinal transplants at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust transplantation unit, one of only two centres offering adult intestinal transplantation in the United Kingdom. These results will have direct patient benefit by elucidating the mechanisms that drive graft rejection and GVHD in intestinal transplantation, and by identifying strategies that might prevent these complications. Moreover, these results may provide insights into more fundamental questions in human immunology, including the dynamics of tissue residency of immune cells in the gut.
We develop a new estimator, called Principal Components Difference-in-Differences (PCDID), for treatment effect estimation in scenarios where the parallel trend assumption may be violated. Our estimator, which is applicable to both aggregate and micro-level data, integrates a data-driven method to proxy unobserved trends, and it can be easily implemented in two steps. We develop various estimation and inference procedures for the average treatment effect of the treated (ATET) and individual treatment effect of the treated (ITET). We also develop and compare two statistical tests -- the Hausman and Alpha tests -- for the parallel trend assumption. In empirical illustrations, we examine variations of placebo designs by Bertrand, Duflo, and Mullainathan (2004), and the effects of welfare waiver programs on welfare caseloads in the US. Overall, our approach delivers more reasonable and robust results than conventional difference-in-differences approaches. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E5r49PtKF_pYo9dooJaPckbIw0s_Uvs-j_-yT4hjxp4/edit#gid=0
A joint event hosted by the Extra Legal Governance Institute (EXLEGI), Department of Sociology and Refugee Studies Centre Acclaimed documentary film maker James Bluemel will show clips from and talk about his BAFTA winning BBC and PBS documentary series Exodus: Our Journey to Europe. The production team gave cameraphones to people attempting to reach Europe, escaping war, poverty or persecution. They filmed where regular film crews could not go: on the inflatable dinghies crossing from Turkey to Greece, in the back of lorries entering the Eurotunnel, or in open trucks driven by people smugglers across the Sahara. The result is a terrifyingly intimate yet uniquely epic portrait of the biggest movement of people that Europe has seen since World War Two.
SAMHD1 is a post-entry cellular restriction factor that inhibits HIV-1 replication in myeloid-lineage and resting CD4+ T cells. The mechanism of SAMHD1 restriction has been disputed but the predominant theory is that SAMHD1 dNTP triphosphohydrolase activity blocks HIV-1 infection by reducing the cellular dNTP pool to a level that does not support viral reverse transcription. A large body of structural and biochemical studies have demonstrated that the active form of SAMHD1 is a protein tetramer that contains four regulatory allosteric sites each accommodating a deoxynucleotide/nucleotide pair and four active sites that hydrolyse the dNTP substrates. In addition, other studies have shown that the dNTP triphosphohydrolysis reaction is regulated by tetramer stability, controlled by SAMHD1 phosphorylation at residue T592. However, although, this wealth of information has contributed significantly to our understanding of SAMHD1 restriction, regulation and activation the exact nature of SAMHD1 cellular activity that restricts HIV-1 and the molecular details catalytic mechanism of dNTP hydrolysis have remained unclear. Therefore, to elucidate the molecular mechanism of dNTP triphospho-hydrolysis by SAMHD1, we have undertaken virological studies together with comprehensive, enzymological studies employing deoxynucleotide substrate and activator analogues and determined crystal structures of catalytically active SAMHD1 with dNTP-mimicking, competitive inhibitors. The SAMHD1-inhibitor co-crystal structures show in atomic detail how dNTP substrates are coordinated at the SAMHD1 active site and reveal how the activated protein cleaves the phospho-ester bond in the dNTP substrate. In conclusion, these studies now clarify the anti-HIV-1 activity of SAMHD1 and provide the molecular details of the SAMHD1 reaction mechanism demonstrating how dNTP substrates are hydrolysed and enable more accurate prediction of whether new and existing antiviral and anticancer drugs are hydrolysed by SAMHD1.
The link between obesity and type 2 diabetes is clear on an epidemiological level, however the mechanism linking these two common disorders is not well defined. One hypothesis linking obesity to type 2 diabetes is the adipose tissue expandability hypothesis. The adipose tissue expandability hypothesis states that a failure in the capacity for adipose tissue expansion, rather than obesity per se is the key factor linking positive energy balance and type 2 diabetes. All individuals possess a maximum capacity for adipose expansion which is determined by both genetic and environmental factors. Once the adipose tissue expansion limit is reached, adipose tissue ceases to store energy efficiently and lipids begin to accumulate in other tissues. Ectopic lipid accumulation in non-adipocyte cells causes lipotoxic insults including insulin resistance, apoptosis and inflammation. This article discusses the links between adipokines, inflammation, adipose tissue expandability and lipotoxicity. Finally, we will discuss how considering the concept of allostasis may enable a better understanding of how diabetes develops and allow the rational design of new anti diabetic treatments.
Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ywTkCR-sjBInsVwaWA_M7D2iF7QamyiaLY0qYxR1NOM/edit#gid=0
Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X58s71reMYccz52W0_cQ8wf5cUxvc4hOe2xJjjHkg3Q/edit#gid=0
Transitioning away from our current global energy system is of paramount importance. The speed at which a transition can take place—its timing, or temporal dynamics—is a critical element of consideration. This presentation therefore investigates the issue of time in global and national energy transitions by asking: What does the mainstream academic literature suggest about the time scale of energy transitions? Additionally, what does some of the more recent empirical data related to transitions say, or challenge, about conventional views? In answering these questions, the article presents a “mainstream” view of energy transitions as long, protracted affairs, often taking decades to centuries to occur. However, the article then offers some empirical evidence that the predominant view of timing may not always be supported by the evidence, and that accelerated transitions are possible under the right circumstances.
The scale, impact and significance of the Black Death have divided opinion since the nineteenth century, but recent multi-disciplinary research has sought to restore its central position in the transition from feudal to modern society. The reconstruction of the institutional framework of pre-plague England—as revealed through the workings of the land, labour and grain markets—enables its subsequent dynamic interaction with sudden and precipitous demographic decline to be properly explored.
Recent studies reveal that airway epithelial cells are critical pulmonary circadian pacemaker cells, mediating rhythmic inflammatory responses. Using mouse models we now identify the rhythmic circadian repressor REV-ERB as essential to the mechanism coupling the pulmonary clock to innate immunity. Dual mutation of REV-ERBα and its paralog REV-ERBβ in bronchial epithelia further augmented inflammatory responses and chemokine activation, but also initiated a basal inflammatory state, revealing a critical homeostatic role for REV-ERB proteins in the suppression of the endogenous pro-inflammatory mechanism in un-challenged cells. Thus, dynamic changes in stability of REV-ERB protein couple the core clock to innate immunity. ---- David trained in general internal medicine and endocrinology in the UK, and California. He developed a research interest in nuclear receptor function in inflammation, which was supported by MRC, and GSK fellowships. He then identified the importance of the circadian clock machinery in regulating innate immunity, using lung, joint and gut models, and is extending these studies to human cohorts. He recently moved to Oxford, with Wellcome and MRC support, to work on circadian control of inflammation in the lung, and the re-wiring of circadian metabolism by chronic inflammatory processes.
The question of how and with what methods the social sciences should explain phenomena is fiercely contested. While some have argued that mixed methods may be a valuable addition to the explanatory sociological toolkit, there is a lack of highly visible examples that show the added value of this methodology. The goal of this paper is to show that the case of the Titanic, and the question of who survived and for what reasons, can be seen as such an example. The Titanic tragedy is the most well-known maritime disaster of modern history, and the Titanic dataset is a widely used and first-rate example for the teaching of mono-method statistical explanation. We demonstrate that a mixed-method explanation is superior to a mono-method explanation in that it clarifies not only the relationships between variables, but also the game-mechanisms that led to the co-variations. Among the most important game-mechanisms, we find that the rule “women and children first” was interpreted differently by different actors, and that this, together with the fact that different classes of passengers had different levels of access to the boat deck, explains much of the gender/class differences in terms of survival that we can observe. We conclude by discussing the lessons that can be drawn from the example for sociological explanatory work more generally.
Forthcoming
Abstract TBC
to follow
Coming Soon
This paper studies how diversification in global sourcing improves firm resilience to supply chain disruptions. I build a model in which firms select into importing, taking into account domestic and international trade costs. The model predicts that firms which are more geographically diversified in sourcing are more resilient to supply chain disruptions. Reductions in trade costs induce firms to further diversify their sourcing strategies. I then exploit the 2003 SARS epidemic as a natural experiment to examine the resilience of Chinese manufacturing importers. Firm imports fell by 7.9% on average when the trade route was hit by SARS, but fell by as much as 52% for firms without any diversification. Estimation based on sufficient statistics indicates that the disruption led to smaller increases in marginal cost for firms with more trade routes for imports and reduced total Chinese manufacturing outputs by about 0.7% at the peak of the epidemic. Furthermore, connectivity to roads increased firms' resilience to the SARS epidemic by facilitating diversification in global sourcing. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uw4KLldUQhpUFYdu0k-OuaDbIeqrbpjIXLvxhdWUXgw/edit#gid=0
Are you a postdoctoral researcher or DPhil student engaged in teaching in MPLS? Do you want to find ways of making your teaching more effective, both for your students and for yourself? Would you like to learn more about how to take a more evidence-based approach to your teaching and your students’ learning? This course offers a way for you to do all of these things while at the same time gaining a portable qualification that will enhance your future employability as an academic with teaching responsibilities.
Horton Hospital: -- Rheumatology: "A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing", Dr Lorraine O’Neill -- Chair: TBA
Everyone needs transport to move around and to access everyday needs, but for each individual those needs are different, and they change over time and space: herein lie the seeds of inequalities in transport. In Inequality in Transport, David Banister addresses this complex problem, first through an exploration of inequality, its nature, measurement and extent. He then links inequality and the transport sector through detailed analysis of the variations in daily and long-distance travel in Great Britain over a ten-year period. He argues that there must be a much wider interpretation of inequality – one that links actual travel with measures of wellbeing and sustainability, recognizing that these will change over time. In drawing his findings together, he concludes that there must be new thinking in transport policy and planning if transport inequalities are to be alleviated.
We study the identification and estimation of a mixed logit model of demand for bundles. We generalize the original model proposed by Gentzkow (2007) in three ways. First, we allow the demand synergy parameters (capturing complementarity and substitutability) to be bundle-individual specific and treated as random coefficients. Second, we allow the joint distribution of the random coefficients to belong to any parametric family. Third, our arguments are not specific to the three-bundle case but are directly developed for choice sets of any size. We propose sufficient conditions for identification and for lack of it. Our sufficient conditions for identification also guarantee consistency and asymptotic normality of standard MLE and GMM estimators, which are robust to both price endogeneity and sampling error in the observed market shares of bundles. Finally, we use our methods to investigate the welfare implications of bundle-level pricing strategies in the ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal industry in the USA. Preliminary results highlight the existence of strong demand synergies among different RTE cereal brands and an interesting interaction between mixed-bundling pricing and market structure: mixed-bundling pricing increases firms' profits only in the absence of competition (i.e., perfect collusion or monopoly), while it hurts both consumers and firms as soon as some competition is present. Please sign up for meetings below: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E5r49PtKF_pYo9dooJaPckbIw0s_Uvs-j_-yT4hjxp4/edit#gid=0
This lecture is followed by a drinks reception in Examination Schools
Neurons are highly polarized cells whose shape is controlled by cytoskeleton networks. The formation of neuronal protrusions such as dendrites and axons is mediated by the dynamic nature of microtubules, and it is the basis of neuronal development. Particularly at axon branches, signaling processes trigger actin re-formation leading to the recruitment of microtubules to reinforce the branching site; however, little is known about this remodeling mechanism. Combining the interdisciplinary methods of cryo-EM, biophysics, and cell biology, we focus on elucidating the mechanism of neuronal cell shape formation and accompanying cytoskeleton remodeling. We will present our recent discovery of a novel factor SSNA1, promoting axon branch formation. To understand the underlying mechanism of branch promotion, we have characterized the interaction of the protein with tubulin and reconstituted its microtubule nucleation process in vitro. Moreover, cryo-EM revealed the surprising observation that SSNA1 facilitates direct microtubule branching. Mutagenesis experiments in primary neurons correlate the molecular remodeling activity with the formation of axon branches.
The connections that link neurons within as well as between cerebral cortical areas form a multi-scale structural network for communication in the brain. Which principles underlie the organisation of this complex network? We addressed this question by systematically investigating the relation of essential features of cortico-cortical connections, such as their presence or absence as well as patterns of laminar projection origins and terminations, to fundamental structural parameters of cortical areas, such as their distance, similarity in cortical cytoarchitecture as defined by cortical lamination or neuronal density, and similarity in further macroscopic and microscopic morphological features. These systematic analyses demonstrate the presence of an architectural type principle. Across different species (mouse, cat, macaque monkey and human) and different cortices, the essential features of cortico-cortical connections vary consistently and strongly with the cytoarchitectonic similarity of cortical areas. By contrast, such relations were not found as consistently in multivariate analyses for distance, similarity of cortical thickness or cellular morphological features. The presence of the architectonic type principle across mammalian brains allows direct cross-species predictions of the existence and laminar patterns of projections, including for the human brain, where such data are not directly available experimentally. Moreover, intrinsic brain architecture as characterised by architectural type and neural density also accounts for cellular neuronal features, such as cell size or shape. Thus, these findings illuminate a general principle of neural wiring and integrate cortical connectivity and architecture across scales of organisation, with implications for models of cortical physiology as well as developmental mechanisms.
We formalize the argument that political disagreements can be traced to a "clash of narratives". Drawing on the "Bayesian Networks" literature, we model a narrative as a causal model that maps actions into consequences, weaving a selection of other random variables into the story. An equilibrium is defined as a probability distribution over narrative-policy pairs that maximize a representative agent's anticipatory utility - capturing the idea that public opinion favors hopeful narratives. Our equilibrium analysis sheds light on the structure of prevailing narratives, the variables they involve, the policies they sustain and their contribution to political polarization. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ywTkCR-sjBInsVwaWA_M7D2iF7QamyiaLY0qYxR1NOM/edit#gid=0
Escalating prices and the sudden shortage of labour in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death posed an urgent threat to the ordained social order, spurring both seigniorial attempts to tighten control over serfdom and a raft of ambitious new government legislation. By the 1360s, however, compromise and competition were more prominent than coercion, and irreversible institutional changes had been set in motion. A Drinks Reception will follow this lecture at 6pm in the North School All are welcome to attend
Forthcoming
After working on conflict mitigation, stabilization, independent media, and countering violent extremism in Syria, John founded Hala to use technology to help fill a critical global need to provide better security and safety for the world's most vulnerable populations. Hala's launch project was the creation of a robust and dependable early warning system for airstrikes, designed to give civilians time to mitigate the threat presented by multi-year air campaigns waged by multiple countries in Syria. Called "Sentry," the technology-driven system has saved lives, prevented injuries, and reduced trauma for the millions of civilians impacted by airstrikes. Prior to Hala, John spent 3 years as a US Department of State official ultimately designing and managing an eight-figure independent media program, working directly with Syrians and multiple USG and ally entities to help create communications networks, develop civilian leadership, inform the populace, strengthen independent voices, increase resilience, and reduce physical, digital, and psycho-social threats. Before becoming a diplomat, John spent nearly two decades in multiple executive and technology leadership roles in Silicon Valley and Chicago’s financial industry, designing, implementing, and managing mission-critical product and technology initiatives.
Day 1 of the course meets the requirements for the HEE TV Train the Trainer (Educational Supervisor) certification for consultants. Once you have completed this day, you will have the opportunity to go on to compile a portfolio, which with successful grading by OLI, will qualify you for the "fast-track" membership of the Academy of Medical Educators and gain the SEDA PDF Supporting Learning (accredited university/higher education level teaching award).
The presentation will introduce the development of the new Offshore Renewable Energy Supergen hub and describe the process and results of the engagement and consultation work carried out to design the new programme, together with an update on the status of the new Supergen hub.
The DLT Programme is designed for anyone new to teaching in higher education who wishes to learn how to take a more effective, inclusive and evidence-informed approach to teaching and learning in the sciences. Graduate research students with teaching responsibilities and postdoctoral researchers with an interest in an academic career may find it particularly useful to develop their teaching skills and gain a portable qualification to enhance future employability.
Coming Soon
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This talk will argue that modern economic theory has led to the confusion between profits and rents, and hence the distinction between value creation and value extraction. Using case studies-from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma, Professor Mariana Mazzucato demonstrates how the current rules of the system reward extractors over creators, and distort the measurements of growth and GDP. In the process, innovation suffers and inequality rises. To move to a different system—with growth that is more inclusive, sustainable and innovation-led—it is critical to rethink public value and public purpose in the economy. The talk will be followed by a Q&A, moderated by Professor Ngaire Woods, Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government. This event is co-hosted with INET and the Oxford Martin School.
This lecture assesses the material culture of Christianity in Europe c. 600 to c.1200 by investigating the contents of selected relic collections in France and Switzerland, and demonstrates the continuing relevance of Medieval History in the present day. All are welcome to attend The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the Rooms 14 and 15, Examination Schools
Damage to the primary visual cortex leads to loss of the visual field contralateral to the damaged cortex. However, in spite of this loss, some patients are still able to detect visual information about stimuli presented within their blind field. A growing area of research aims to exploit this residual visual function to try to improve visual performance through rehabilitation programmes stimulating the blind field. However, to optimise such programmes it is important to understand the pathways through which this information is conveyed. Here I will present a series of magnetic resonance imaging studies in which we attempted to elucidate these pathways in a group of hemianopic patients. Firstly I will explain how our functional MRI studies use the specific pattern of response to visual stimulation in different visual areas to uncover candidate pathways. I will use diffusion-weighted data to provide support for a pathway between the lateral geniculate nucleus and motion area MT that is consistently intact only in patients showing blindsight abilities. Finally, I will present our most recent data in which we find further support for this pathway using functional connectivity analysis.
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The absence of many of the anticipated economic and social consequences of the Black Death during the third quarter of the fourteenth century, and the presence of many contradictory signals, have long puzzled historians. The mystery owes much to the disruption and volatility caused by a succession of further environmental and epidemiological crises in the 1360s, and to the complex human responses to the continuing instability and uncertainty.
In my talk I will sketch the contours of a relational approach to collective action processes within civil society. Drawing upon network analytic tools, and my work on civic networks in British cities (The Cement of Civil Society, Cambridge UP, 2015), I will introduce the concept of “mode of coordination” to illustrate the multiple ways in which collective action gets organized in specific local settings. I will suggest in particular that a relational approach to the study of organizational populations provides a different, more nuanced comparison between local civil societies, than the one provided by aggregative approaches to collective processes.
Forthcoming
This seminar is number two in a five-part public seminar series on ‘Student Access to University’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Jo-Anne Baird (Director, Department of Education) and Simon Marginson (Professor of Higher Education, Department of Education). The series forms part of the department’s 100th Anniversary celebrations, marking 100 years of leading research in education. The series will be held at venues across the University and aims to encourage public discussion and move access forward by bringing a research-based treatment to it. SEMINAR SPEAKERS This seminar will be chaired by Martin Williams (Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education), University of Oxford). The speakers will include, Chris Millward (Director of fair Access and Participation, Office for Students) and a response will be given by Simon Marginson (Professor of Education, Department of Education, University of Oxford).
Abstract to follow
Coming Soon
Optical approaches are revolutionising the way experiments are performed in systems neuroscience. This workshop will focus on two-photon microscopy, explaining how it works and why it is useful. Starting with basic optical principles, we will work our way up to advanced approaches. The goal of the workshop is to develop an intuition for the basic operating principles of these microscopes and how they can be used to record and manipulate neural activity in vivo. This workshop is geared towards those interested in using this approach in their work as well as current users of two-photon microscopy that wish to understand more deeply how the microscope works. Topics covered include: 1. How do lenses work 2. Fluorescence and two-photon excitation 3. How does a two-photon microscope work 4. Two-photon optogenetics and multi-cell stimulation with spatial light modulators
Why should anyone care about primes? Well, prime numbers are important, not just in pure mathematics, but also in the real world. Various different, difficult problems in science lead to seemingly very simple questions about prime numbers. Unfortunately, these seemingly simple problems have stumped mathematicians for thousands of years, and are now some of the most notorious open problems in mathematics! Oxford Research Professor James Maynard is one of the brightest young stars in world mathematics at the moment, having made dramatic advances in analytic number theory in recent years. Please email external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk to register. Watch live: https://www.facebook.com/OxfordMathematics/ https://livestream.com/oxuni/Maynard The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.
Since the late 2000s, science has established that global warming is largely defined by the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere. This concept not only implies that halting warming to any level implies that global carbon dioxide emissions have to be reduced to net zero, it also allows to estimate carbon budgets that would be compatible with limiting warming to either 1.5°C or 2°C. Once established, the carbon budget concept and its implications were rapidly taken up in policy discussions. In this talk, Dr Joeri Rogelj, will explore and discuss the latest developments in estimation the remaining carbon budget as well as its usefulness for guiding policy and climate change mitigation action.
Are you a postdoctoral researcher or DPhil student engaged in teaching in MPLS? Do you want to find ways of making your teaching more effective, both for your students and for yourself? Would you like to learn more about how to take a more evidence-based approach to your teaching and your students’ learning? This course offers a way for you to do all of these things while at the same time gaining a portable qualification that will enhance your future employability as an academic with teaching responsibilities.
Geratology: -- GU Medicine: Dr Emily Lord and Dr Huda Fadzillah -- Chair: TBA
How does public transport work in an African city under neoliberalism? Who has the power to influence its changing shape over time? What does it mean to be a precarious and informal worker in the private minibuses that provide such transport in Dar es Salaam? These are the main questions that inform this in-depth case study of Dar es Salaam’s public transport system over more than forty years. The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system’s journey from public to private provision. This new addition to the Oxford University Press series “Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research, and Policy in International Development Studies”, investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport and documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to the political organization and unionization which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam, and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial approaches to the study of economic informality, the urban experience in developing countries, and their failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualized study of neoliberalism. Matteo Rizzo is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. Matteo has degrees in Political Sciences from "L'Orientale" (Naples, Italy) and Development Studies and History from SOAS (MSc and PhD), where he also completed an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship. Matteo has taught at the LSE, at the African Studies Centre in Oxford and in Cambridge, where he was a Smuts Research Fellow in African Studies at the Centre of African Studies. Matteo is a member of the Editorial Working Group of the Review of African Political Economy and works on public transport for the International Transport Workers Federation.
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This paper examines the humanitarian politics of responding to Zimbabwe’s catastrophic cholera outbreak of 2008/09, the worst in African history. It demonstrates how humanitarian relief operations are riven by competing claims to leadership, authority and legitimacy but often converge on the ineluctable logic of saving lives – ‘the salvation agenda’. Nevertheless, the paper contends that the exigency of saving lives in this case did not, and could not, address the background political and socio-economic conditions that led to the epidemic. Thus, the paper explores the possibilities, pitfalls and paradoxes of the salvation agenda and mounts a novel critique of how the humanitarian industrial complex operates in Africa.
Although the contribution of the hippocampus to episodic memory is well-established, much remains to be known about the network mechanisms underlying memory retrieval at this level and the specific involvement of each hippocampal subfield in this process. I will present recent data based on activity-dependent gene mapping, optogenetics and behavioral techniques showing that dissociating CA1’s from CA3‘s contribution and the contribution of their proximal from that of their distal parts, are essential for a better understanding of spatial and non-spatial information processing in the medial temporal lobe for recent (few min) to very remote (1 year-old) memories (Nakamura et al, J. Neurosc., 2013; Lux et al, Elife, 2017; Beer and Vavra, Plos Biology, 2018).
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Recent studies of the Peasants’ Revolt have focused less on modern pre-occupations with class and revolution and more upon the common threads of conflict uniting different social groups across diffuse power structures. This perspective provides fresh insights into the innate tensions and widespread sense of injustice generated by the structure and implementation of government legislation between the Black Death and the uprising
Costimulatory signals are critical for the success of T cell responses. For CD4 Th1 effector and memory responses, OX40 signals are essential, however, our understanding of the key cellular sources of OX40L in vivo, alongside how expression of OX40L is regulated, is lacking. Here we demonstrate that provision of OX40L by DC, but not T cells, B cells nor ILC3 is required and determine how DC expression of OX40L is regulated through cross-talk with NK cells. We then contrast cellular provision of OX40L in systemic Th1 responses with the requirments for Th17 responses in the intestine. ---- David Withers qualified with a BSc (Hons) in Virology and Microbiology from the University of Warwick in 2000. He went on to study for a PhD in Immunology at the Institute for Animal Health in conjunction with the University of Bristol. After obtaining his PhD, David continued his studies in the laboratory of Peter Lipsky at NIAMS, NIH, Bethseda (2004-2006). He then returned to the UK to study with Peter Lane at the University of Birmingham, cementing his interest in secondary lymphoid tissue development/structure and how this controlled CD4 T cell responses. Research in the Withers Lab is supported by the Wellcome Trust. In 2011 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship to establish his own research group investigating the role of lymphoid tissue inducer cells in lymph nodes. In 2016 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Basic Biomedical Science.
We use data from a large scale and nationally representative survey to evaluate two narratives about the social bases of Brexit. The first narrative sees Brexit as a revolt of the economically left-behinds; while the second narrative attributes Brexit to the resurgence of an English nationalism. Overall, our findings do not support the left-behind narrative. People with income below the poverty line, or those residing in economically deprived neighbourhoods, or in areas that have seen greater import penetration from China are not more likely to support Leave. Using the Weberian class--status distinction, it is social status, not social class, that stratifies Brexit support. Individuals for whom being British is important are more pro-Brexit. But those who choose national identity over sub-national identity and those reporting omnivorous cultural consumption are less supportive of Brexit. Overall, our results show a strong cultural dimension in Brexit support.
Discover and discuss innovative teaching at Oxford: join us for the third meeting of the Oxford Digital Teaching Innovation Forum (OxDTIF). This networking event will host a series of short talks by academics to introduce a range of digital teaching initiatives taking place at Oxford. This will be a chance for you not only to learn about these practices but also a place for you to help develop these and potentially initiate new practices. There will also be opportunities to try recording a ‘green screen’ video (think weather presenter) using RapidMooc, an all-in-one video recording solution available at SBS and Central AV, and to see the SBS HIVE for videoconferencing with a difference! Refreshments will be provided.
Forthcoming
Sir Gregory Paul Winter CBE FRS FMedSci is a molecular biologist best known for his work on developing technologies to make therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Previously, it had proved impossible to make human mAbs against human self-antigen targets, as required for treatment of non-infectious diseases such as cancer or rheumatoid arthritis - and the corresponding rodent mAbs had provoked immune responses when given to patients. Winter is credited with inventing techniques both to humanise rodent mAbs (1986) and to create fully human mAbs (1990). For his work on "harnessing the power of evolution" Winter was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with George Smith and Frances Arnold. Winter was cited specifically "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies”, the technology that led to the fully human antibody “Humira”, and which is now the world’s top-selling pharmaceutical drug. He founded three Cambridge-based start-up companies to help develop therapeutic drugs based on his inventions, and his research career has been based almost entirely at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering, in Cambridge, England. He has been a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, and is now Master of the College.
Participation in postgraduate study has increased considerably over the last quarter century. Despite this expansion, access to postgraduate study has received relatively little attention from researchers and policymakers. There are concerns that gains in undergraduate participation may be nullified by inequalities in postgraduate access. Postgraduates also comprise the future pool of academic workers. Recent policy attention has focused on loan funding for postgraduate courses – but has this had an impact? This seminar will review the evidence on access to postgraduate study, identify what this might mean for funders, universities and their communities, and outline outstanding gaps in our knowledge. This seminar is number three in a five-part public seminar series on ‘Student Access to University’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Jo-Anne Baird (Director, Department of Education) and Simon Marginson (Professor of Higher Education, Department of Education). The series forms part of the department’s 100th Anniversary celebrations, marking 100 years of leading research in education. The series will be held at venues across the University and aims to encourage public discussion and move access forward by bringing a research-based treatment to it. Registration is required.
coming soon
One of the most robust findings in the empirical trade literature is that exporters charge higher prices on exports to more distant countries. In this paper, we argue that the positive relationship between export prices and bilateral distance is largely driven by variable markups, and is moreover heterogeneous across products differentiated by quality. To this end, we rely on a model which assumes that trade costs are both ad valorem and per unit, implying that firms charge higher markups and therefore higher prices on exports to more distant countries, but the effects are predicted to be smaller in magnitude for the higher quality varieties. We find strong support for the predictions of the model using a unique data set of Argentinean firm-level wine exports combined with experts wine ratings as a measure of quality. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uw4KLldUQhpUFYdu0k-OuaDbIeqrbpjIXLvxhdWUXgw/edit#gid=0
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Transport is almost entirely (99.9%) powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs) burning petroleum-derived liquid fuels (95%) and the global demand for transport energy is large and is increasing. The alternatives to ICEs and conventional fuels start from a very low base and face significant environmental and other barriers to fast and unrestrained growth. For instance, there is speculation that transport could be rapidly and fully electrified. However commercial transport, which accounts for over 50% of transport energy use, is very difficult or impossible to electrify. To replace even all light duty vehicles (LDVs) by battery electric vehicles (BEVs) requires the numbers of BEVs to increase by perhaps a thousand-fold on a global scale. The greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of BEVs would be worse than that of conventional vehicles if electricity generation and the energy used for battery production are not sufficiently decarbonized. If coal continues to be a part of the energy mix, as it will in China and India, and if power generation is near urban centres, even local air quality in terms of particulates, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide would get worse. The human toxicity impacts associated with battery production are large and cannot be ignored as they currently are. If governments wish to force a change to BEVs, very large investments in charging infrastructure and electricity generation will be needed. There will be additional costs in the short term associated with various subsidies required to promote such a change and in the longer term, the loss of revenue from fuel taxes which contribute significantly to public finances in most countries. Internal combustion engines will continue to power transport, particularly commercial transport, to a very large degree for decades to come and will continue to improve. There will also be a role for low-carbon and other alternative fuels where they make sense. However, such alternatives also start from a low base and face constraints on rapid and unlimited growth so that they are not expected to make up much more than 10% of the total transport energy demand by 2040. In the longer term, as GHG-free electricity generation is greatly expanded and battery technology improves there will be an increasing role for BEVs and the required charging and recycling infrastructure will evolve. Meanwhile, there will certainly be increasing electrification, particularly of LDVs in the form of hybridization to improve ICEs.
The DLT Programme is designed for anyone new to teaching in higher education who wishes to learn how to take a more effective, inclusive and evidence-informed approach to teaching and learning in the sciences. Graduate research students with teaching responsibilities and postdoctoral researchers with an interest in an academic career may find it particularly useful to develop their teaching skills and gain a portable qualification to enhance future employability.
Dr. Elisa Greggio is a molecular physiologist in the Department of Biology at the University of Padova, Italy. RESEARCH INTERESTS: Genetic forms of dominant Parkinson's. Mitochondrial function, axonal transport and cellular pathways in Parkinson's. Biochemical properties of Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2). Oxidative stress in Parkinson's.
Coming Soon
Infection/Microbiology: -- Renal: -- Chair: TBA
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The ability to navigate efficiently is fundamental to animals’ survival and success; enabling them to find mates, avoid predators and find their way home. To orient around their local environment, animals must recognise their own position with respect to a goal. This task can be achieved through a representation of space in their brain, built upon learning and remembering environmental features that are inputted through multiple sensory systems. A substantial research effort has sought to understand how animals navigate, but this has been focused on horizontal movement, despite the real world being three-dimensional. Indeed, most animals have some kind of vertical component to their movements, and there are both quantitative and qualitative reasons why navigating through environments with a vertical axis might be different to navigating purely in 2D. This is pushed to the extreme in volumetric environments, such as those inhabited by many fish. By using experimental and theoretical approaches, we consider how pelagic and benthic fish deal with 3D navigation; from the sensory input, to what information is learned and remembered. This not only allows us to unpick the mechanisms that underpin this important behaviour, but can also inform us about the processes behind learning and memory themselves.
"Crowds" are often regarded as ``wiser'' than individuals, and prediction markets are often regarded as effective methods for harnessing this wisdom. If the agents in prediction markets are Bayesians who share a common model and prior belief, then the no-trade theorem implies that we should see no trade in the market. But if the agents in the market are not Bayesians who share a common model and prior belief, then it is no longer obvious that the market outcome aggregates or conveys information. In this paper, we examine a stylized prediction market comprised of Bayesian agents whose inferences are based on different models of the underlying environment. We explore a basic tension---the differences in models that give rise to the possibility of trade generally preclude the possibility of perfect information aggregation. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ywTkCR-sjBInsVwaWA_M7D2iF7QamyiaLY0qYxR1NOM/edit#gid=0
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The economic downturn of the mid-1370s and the easing of social tensions after 1381 are held to represent a watershed, after which English society finally settled into a post-plague equilibrium. This interpretation is not readily reconciled with evidence from the late 1380s for continuing economic turbulence, heightened anxiety about how to deal with the shortage of labour, and renewed social conflict.
Crowdsourcing the OED is a digital humanities project seeking to uncover all the people who helped create the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1857 to 1928. This paper shows how digital tools and methods such as network analysis, graph theory, and geo-rectified mapping, reveal new and surprising information about the connections between people which would otherwise be impossible to determine manually. This seminar is co-organized by Digital Humanities at Oxford, the Bodleian Libraries’ Centre for Digital Scholarship, and TORCH. Biography: Sarah Ogilvie is senior research fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and director of global partnerships at Oxford University Press. A linguist, lexicographer, and computer scientist, Ogilvie recently came to Oxford from Stanford where she taught in the linguistics department and was co-director of Stanford’s digital humanities minor.
Why do Islamists mobilize in some mosques, but not others? We answer this question by matching a list of mosque-based lectures, sermons, and collections carried out by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in interwar Cairo with a geo-referenced 1:5,000 scale map series from the same time period. Our results suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood was more likely to operate in larger mosques where they enjoyed prior relationships and that were located in close proximity to transport networks. Mosques in areas lacking both government health services and other Islamic associations were also more likely to host Islamist activism. A supplementary analysis shows that the Muslim Brotherhood was more likely to establish health services in areas that had previously seen mosque activities. These findings deepen our understanding of the conditions under which certain mosques become sites for Islamist mobilization, and demonstrate how historical spatial data can be utilized to study political activism
Forthcoming
People who see a psychoanalyst are prompted to speak in the first place. The analyst, on his part, listens and follows this discourse unfolding, in which he engages in various ways. But while this discourse implies the place of the analyst, it doesn't determine the place of the speaking subject in the same way. At the conscious level the person speaking refers to itself by the personal pronoun of «I». Whereas at the level of the unconscious there is nothing which allows the subject to identify as author of its own discourse. Instead — where such self-reference is called upon — the subject grasps at nothing and fades: The subject fades either in the mode of regression or fantasy. Reading Freud «in psychoanalysis nothing occurs but the interchange of words», Lacan adds, that «something is lacking at the level of the [O]ther which permits the subject to identify himself there as precisely the subject of this discourse that he is holding» and that «the subject disappears in it as such in so far as this discourse is the discourse of the unconscious.» Therefore, the analyst follows the subject from fading to fading. Spotting this fading in the material of the session becomes crucial in terms of clinical technique. Alongside clinical vignettes I will refer to the fairy tale «The frog king or Iron Henry» to develop novel ideas on Lacan's «graph of desire», helping analysts to better orientate themselves in the transferential material.
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coming soon
Are you a postdoctoral researcher or DPhil student engaged in teaching in MPLS? Do you want to find ways of making your teaching more effective, both for your students and for yourself? Would you like to learn more about how to take a more evidence-based approach to your teaching and your students’ learning? This course offers a way for you to do all of these things while at the same time gaining a portable qualification that will enhance your future employability as an academic with teaching responsibilities.
Respiratory: "An unusual case of breathlessness", Dr Chris Turnbull -- Gastroenterology: Dr Anthony Croft and Dr Satish Keshav -- Chair: TBA
To realise the potential of big data and IT effectively and responsibly, we must design, use, and govern IT research and innovation with more respect for human rights. This need is accentuated in the field of disaster management and response since it is during disasters and crises that the “disruptive” momentum of data can become stark; both enabling a richer operational picture and understanding of crises with potentially life-saving effects, while at the same time engendering far-reaching effects on human rights and social values such as trust, equality, privacy, justice. Indeed, sharing disaster information and data through digital infrastructures and across borders, institutions and new and digital public(s) puts into tension social and regulatory practices and makes visible the complex ways in which data produces power in society. In this presentation I reflect upon a digital ethics design research project, where production of a community knowledge exchange platform www.isITethical.eu has generated momentum for collaborative research and innovation in disaster risk management. I will present the platform and a specially designed table-top game along with various tools we have developed for creative ethical impact assessment as part of our isITethical? Exchange. I will contextualise our initiative in relation to efforts of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and explore with you the generative and disruptive power of data and the situated, socio-technical nature of data sharing practices. Bio Monika Büscher is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research. She is the academic lead for the Lancaster University Social Research Impact Acceleration Account and leads research on social practices of mobility and risk governance in a range of projects, e.g. isITethical? (2017-2018), SecInCoRe (2014-2017), BRIDGE (2011-2015). Monika initiated the www.isITethical.eu platform, which develops guidance for digital ethics and responsible innovation in collaboration with the Public Safety Communications Europe Network. She received an honorary doctorate from Roskilde University, Denmark for her work on participatory design. She edits the book series Changing Mobilities (Routledge) with Peter Adey.
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We examine ways to measure the amount of information generated by a piece of news and the amount of uncertainty implicit in a given belief. Say a measure of information is valid if it corresponds to the value of news in some decision problem. Say a measure of uncertainty is valid if it corresponds to expected utility loss from not knowing the state in some decision problem. We axiomatically characterize all valid measures of information and uncertainty. We show that if measures of information and uncertainty arise from the same decision problem, then they are coupled in that the expected reduction in uncertainty always equals the expected amount of information generated. We provide explicit formulas for the measure of information that is coupled with any given measure of uncertainty and vice versa. Finally, we show that valid measures of information are the only payment schemes that never provide incentives to delay information revelation. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ywTkCR-sjBInsVwaWA_M7D2iF7QamyiaLY0qYxR1NOM/edit#gid=0
How far had English society shed ‘feudal’ institutions—such as serfdom—and replaced them with discernibly ‘modern’ institutions—such as contractual tenures and the European Marriage Pattern—by the end of the fourteenth century? An assessment of the nature and scale of institutional change offers insights into the role of the Black Death in bringing about the change and the distinctiveness of the English experience.
Throughout the ages physics has sought to explain the nature of matter both on Earth and in the heavens. Millennia ago, the Greek philosophers posited the existence of atoms, thereby launching a journey through the centuries, which in due course confirmed their existence and have made them tools of our everyday life. More recently, modern thought combined the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics leading to an understanding of matter now encoded in the Standard Model. This progress has led to startling new applications in fields such as nanotechnology and genomics. This conference will trace the progress of thought from the speculations of the ancients to the reality of the modern day.
I will discuss our recent frindings on the ontogeny of secretory IgM responses, which emerge from gut plasma cells clonally affiliated to IgM+ memory B cells and some IgA+ memory B cells. I will also discuss new evidence on the biology of human IgA2 and IgD, two largely neglected mucosal antibodies. Differences between humans and mice will be emphasized. ---- Dr. Cerutti earned his MD in 1990 and specialized in Hematology in 1997 at Padua School of Medicine (Padua, Italy). He joined Weill Medical College of Cornell University (New York, NY) in 1996 as a Postdoctoral Fellow to do research in immunology. After finishing his post-doctoral studies, he climbed the academic ladder at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2001 and Associate Professor in 2006. In 2009 he obtained Tenure and moved to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, NY) as a Professor. He also took an ICREA Professor position in IMIM (Barcelona, Spain). He published some 130 articles. The major focus of his research relates to the biology of systemic and mucosal B cells, including the regulation of antibody class switching and production. He serves as a reviewer for ERC, NIH, and other national agencies as well as all of the major immunology/biomedicine journals.
This paper examines the relationship between parents’ and children’s language skill for a nationally representative birth cohort born in the UK - the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). We investigate both socio-economic and ethnic differentials in children’s vocabulary scores, and the role of differences in parents’ vocabulary scores in accounting for these. We find large vocabulary gaps between highly educated and less educated parents, and between ethnic groups. Nevertheless, socio-economic and ethnic gaps in vocabulary scores are far wider among the parents than among their children. Parental vocabulary is a powerful mediator of inequalities in offspring’s vocabulary scores at age 14, and also a powerful driver of change in language skills between the ages of five and 14. Once we account for parental vocabulary, no ethnic minority group of young people has a negative ‘vocabulary gap’ compared to whites.
A cancer genome carries the historic mutagenic activity that has occurred throughout the development of a tumour1. While driver mutations were the main focus of cancer research for a long time, passenger mutational signatures - the imprints of DNA damage and DNA repair processes that have been operative during tumorigenesis - are also biologically informative1,2. In this lecture, I provide a synopsis of this concept, describe the insights that we have gained through combinations of computational analysis3,4 and experiments in cell-based systems5, and showcase how we have developed the concept into applications that we hope to translate into clinical utility in the near future3,4. I describe our efforts in a population-derived cohort as well as in individual patients, emphasizing the need for us to be more precise in analyses and interpretation in human cancer genomics. References: 1. Helleday T, Eshtad S, Nik-Zainal S. Mechanisms underlying mutational signatures in human cancers.Nat Rev Genet. 2014 Sep;15(9):585-98. doi: 10.1038/nrg3729. Epub 2014 Jul 1. Review. PubMed PMID: 24981601; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6044419. 2. Alexandrov LB, Nik-Zainal S, et al. Signatures of mutational processes in human cancer. Nature. 2013 Aug 22;500(7463):415-21. doi: 10.1038/nature12477. Epub 2013 Aug 14. Erratum in: Nature. 2013 Oct 10;502(7470):258. Imielinsk, Marcin [corrected to Imielinski, Marcin]. PubMed PMID: 23945592; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3776390. 3. Nik-Zainal S, Davies H, et al. Landscape of somatic mutations in 560 breast cancer whole-genome sequences. Nature. 2016 Jun 2;534(7605):47-54. doi: 10.1038/nature17676. Epub 2016 May 2. PubMed PMID: 27135926; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4910866. 4. Davies H, Glodzik D, et al. and Nik-Zainal S. HRDetect is a predictor of BRCA1 and BRCA2 deficiency based on mutational signatures. Nat Med. 2017 Apr;23(4):517-525. doi: 10.1038/nm.4292. Epub 2017 Mar 13. PubMed PMID: 28288110; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5833945. 5. Zou X, Owusu M, Harris R, Jackson SP, Loizou JI, Nik-Zainal S. Validating the concept of mutational signatures with isogenic cell models. Nat Commun. 2018 May 1;9(1):1744. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04052-8. PubMed PMID: 29717121; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5931590.
Forthcoming
UK universities are increasingly being called upon to reduce academic entry requirements for disadvantaged applicants as a vital means of promoting fairer access to higher education. This contextualised approach to university admission recognises that the school attainment of disadvantaged learners does not necessarily do justice to their academic potential, and that standard entry requirements typically exceed the minimum needed to succeed at degree level. In this lecture, I lay out the ethical case for reducing entry requirements for disadvantaged learners, arguing that fairness is best conceptualised in terms of distributive rather than procedural justice. Drawing on the findings of research projects funded by the Scottish Funding Council, the ESRC and the Nuffield Foundation, I show that entry requirements could be reduced significantly for disadvantaged learners without ‘setting them up to fail’, but that universities are often conflicted about reducing entry requirements given the prestige attached to admitting only high achievers who can be expected to succeed at university as a matter of course. I also discuss the scope for radical reductions in entry requirements, in conjunction with more active support for students’ learning whilst at university. Finally, I argue that contextualised admissions policies must be targeted accurately if they are to be effective, which means using administratively verified individual-level measures of contextual disadvantage, rather than area level measures such as the POLAR measure of low HE participation areas. This seminar is number four in a five-part public seminar series on ‘Student Access to University’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Jo-Anne Baird (Director, Department of Education) and Simon Marginson (Professor of Higher Education, Department of Education). The series forms part of the department’s 100th Anniversary celebrations, marking 100 years of leading research in education. The series will be held at venues across the University and aims to encourage public discussion and move access forward by bringing a research-based treatment to it. Registration is required. SEMINAR SPEAKERS This seminar will be chaired by Andrew Bell (University College, University of Oxford). The speaker will include, Vikki Boliver (Professor of Sociology, Durham University) and a response will be given by Peter Thonemann (Tutor for Access, Wadham College, University of Oxford) and Neil Harrison (Deputy Director of the Rees Centre for Fostering and Education, Department of Education, University of Oxford).
Coming Soon
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“Can we limit global warming to 1.5°C, and how?”, Professor Myles Allen.
Coming Soon
Palliative Care: -- Neurology: Dr Michele Hu -- Chair: TBA
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Recent advances in communication economy have created new ways for consumers to access service labour. Those who own the platforms associated with these services typically do not employ their workers, but treat them as freelance or 'gig' workers. This has led to a popular complaint that gig work is exploitative or otherwise unjust, and that the platforms need to regulated so that their workers qualify as employees. Many people now boycott the platforms using gig work, or feel uncomfortable about using it. But it is not obvious what the connection is between gig work and injustice or exploitation per se. After all, gig work has always been around in many other forms, and much of it compares favourably with employment in firms. This is not to dismiss the concern that many have with particular kinds of gig work, only to observe that the problem is complicated and calls for more detailed moral theorizing. At bottom, what's needed is a proper theory of what the difference between employment and freelance/gig work is supposed to be, and what moral purpose it serves. This talk will aim to make some progress in this direction.
Call for Papers is now open. See: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/events/oxoncourts-1st-judicial-studies-graduate-colloquium Deadline: 11th January 2019
TBC
In many economic applications of matching, the teams that form compete later in market structures with strategic interactions or with knowledge spillovers. For instance, pharmaceutical companies assemble R&D teams to develop new drugs and compete for patents; similarly, oligopolistic firms hire their skilled workforce in a competitive labor market and then compete in product markets. Such post-match competition introduces externalities at the matching stage: a team’s payoff depends not only on their members’ attributes but also on those of other matched teams. This paper develops a large market model of matching with externalities, in which first teams form, and then they compete. We analyze the sorting patterns that ensue under competitive equilibrium as well as their efficiency properties. Our main results show that insights substantially differ from those of the standard model without externalities (Becker (1973)): there can be multiple competitive equilibria with different sorting patterns; both optimal and competitive equilibrium matching can involve randomization; and competitive equilibrium can be inefficient with a matching that can drastically deviate from the optimal one. We also shed light on the economic relevance of our matching model with externalities. We analyze two economic applications that illustrate how our model can rationalize the trend in within- and between-firm inequality, and also the evolution of markups of sectors where firms have market power. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ywTkCR-sjBInsVwaWA_M7D2iF7QamyiaLY0qYxR1NOM/edit#gid=0
The impact of migration on the economy – in terms of general income, productivity and wellbeing as well as the earnings of the majority – is generally found to be positive (e.g. D’Amuri and Peri, 2014; Docquier et al., 2014; Foged and Peri, 2013; Ortega and Verdugo, 2014). This is thought to be due to migrants not substituting the jobs of the majority, but complementing them and even pushing them into better jobs (Card, 2012). As migrants initially lack the required networks, resources and other forms of host-country human capital such as language skills they would not compete directly with the majority (Chiswick, 2009). Whereas this optimistic picture of migration can very well hold for the aggregate, different commentators have argued that it obscures the dire state of being of traditional working class white communities exposed to greater diversity and the acute competition for resources in places which ‘have been left behind’. While migrants may not directly compete with the majority, established minorities and migrants may be substantially affected through competition as well (Ottaviano and Peri, 2012; Pedace, 2006).
Forthcoming
TBC
This seminar is number five in a five-part public seminar series on ‘Student Access to University’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Jo-Anne Baird (Director, Department of Education) and Simon Marginson (Professor of Higher Education, Department of Education). The series forms part of the department’s 100th Anniversary celebrations, marking 100 years of leading research in education. The series will be held at venues across the University and aims to encourage public discussion and move access forward by bringing a research-based treatment to it. Registration is required. SEMINAR SPEAKERS Seminar panellists will include, Ivor Crewe (Master, University College, University of Oxford), Helen King (Principal, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford), Maggie Snowling (President, St John’s College, University of Oxford), Simon Smith (Senior Tutor, Brasenose College, University of Oxford) and Mark Wormald (Senior Tutor, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford). The Chair is TBA.
The consideration of the setting is paramount in any context in which analytic psychotherapy is practiced. When working with patients seen as traumatised and borderline personalities, however, the setting is often the site of contention. One might consider the setting to be constituted by a variety of conditions: the building in which the treatment takes place, the actual therapeutic room and its furniture, the temporal arrangements, even the demeanour of the analyst, but it also includes the type of work that the therapist does and the boundaries around the work that restrict contact with the patient to the analytic time and maintain the confidentiality of the patient’s material. For all patients, and in particular traumatised patients, the setting can become a facsimile of their internal world. The therapeutic setting they encounter can be filled by the patient with unconscious projections from their wounded past. When the patient perceives the object – that is, encounters the therapist – within the setting, the latter can quickly be imbued with terrifying imagoes. As J. Baldwin (1940), in ‘Many Thousand Gone’, writes, ‘It is not a question of memory. Oedipus did not remember the thongs that bound his feet; nevertheless, the marks they left testified to that doom toward which his feet were leading him. The man does not remember the hand that struck him, the darkness that frightened him, as a child; nevertheless, the hand and the darkness remain with him, indivisible from himself forever, part of the passion that drives him wherever he thinks to take flight.’
coming soon
Coming soon
Emergency Medicine: -- Clinical Biochemistry: -- Chair: TBA
The recent development of various tissue clearing and three-dimensional (3D) methods enabled the comprehensive observation of whole organ/body with cellular resolution or more. Several studies tried to integrate whole-mount staining into the clearing-imaging scheme. However, due to the difficulty in efficient penetration of stains and antibodies, they have only been applied in loose embryonic tissues or with a limited number of antibodies/stains for adult rodent tissues. To logically identify critical parameters for the efficient penetration, we began by investigating material chemistry of fixed and delipidated biological tissue. Then, we performed a surrogate assay with an artificial material similar to tissue in order to widely examine multiple chemical parameters for efficient staining. The identified parameters were integrated as a general 3D staining protocol, with which we have confirmed ~30 chemicals and antibodies used in whole adult mouse brain staining and imaging with single-cell resolution. The developed “CUBIC-HistoVIsion” pipeline for 3D histochemistry and volumetric imaging provides opportunities for multi-channel imaging of functional and structural molecules of whole adult mouse organs as well as primate organs, thus will be widely applied to life science and medical researches in future.
In her recent book: Mobility justice, Sheller (2018: 17) argues that we need to move beyond existing theories of transport justice to consider ‘all forms of movement’ and ‘the wide-ranging techniques for the management of different kinds of im/mobilities and mobility infrastructures’. ‘Mobility’ as opposed to ‘transport’ justice is about embodied relations of gender, racialization, age, disability, sexuality etc., as situated in historical contexts of colonialism; ‘rights to the city’; movement across borders - including violence against women; and the politics of the circulation of goods, resources, pollution and waste. This paper considers this proposition from a gendered perspective, calling upon feminist approaches to justice, space and mobility and looking at particular mobility and transport issues that have been the subject of debate for decades, such as the transport and mobility implications of gendered ‘domestic’ roles and under-representation of women in the transport industry; and emerging issues of violence, harassment and immobilisation that operate across multiple scales.
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What has happened to our culture today that strangers to our shores are not welcomed, not given the protection of our laws and the warmth of our hospitality. What has happened to civilization? Refugees, displaced persons and desperate would-be migrants are treated as creatures of no consequence, no interests and no rights. Great Britain, a nation built on migration: Celts, Saxons, Danes, Romans, Normans, Huguenots, Jews, West Indians, Asians from India, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Singapore and so many others has turned its back on contemporary strangers and on ancient values. To understand this tragedy and both the origins and possible solutions to its disastrous effects, we need to start in the bronze age, nearly three thousand years ago, with one of the most complex and human of humans ever imagined, Odysseus of Ithaca.
As the storm clouds of World War Two gathered over Britain, brilliant minds worked tirelessly at Bletchley Park to break the German Engima ciphers. The secret intelligence unravelled by codebreakers such as Alan Turing and Donald Michie was vital to the war effort and is thought to have shortened the conflict by years. Bletchley Park became the home not only of British codebreaking, but the birthplace of modern information technology. Its extraordinary legacy still impacts on us today and resonates through the work of cyber security experts. Join us at this public lecture, given by Robert Hannigan CMG, exploring the link between the work of the code breakers at Bletchley Park and modern tech companies currently working in cyber security. You will have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session at the end of the lecture. Refreshments will be served from 17:00, the talk will begin at 17:30. You are welcome to stay for a drinks reception afterwards. This lecture will be held in The Hub at Kellogg College, Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN. This lecture is part of Kellogg College's annual programme of events celebrating a partnership between Oxford and Bletchley Park. Find out more and join the conversation #codekellogg Speaker Bio: Robert Hannigan is European Executive Chairman of BlueVoyant, a global cyber security services company. He was Director of GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence and cyber security agency, from 2014-17, when he left Government after 20 years in national security roles, including Prime Minister’s Security Adviser. Robert established the UK National Cyber Security Centre in 2016, having been responsible for the UK’s first cyber strategy in 2009. He also was responsible for delivering the National Offensive Cyber Programme. Robert is a leading authority on cyber security, cyber conflict and the application of technology in national security and writes regularly on cyber issues in the Financial Times, Washington Post and elsewhere. He has written recently on global IT supply chain integrity, US tech companies and privacy, and encryption policy. He is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, the UK’s Institute of Engineering and Technology, and the Royal United Services Institute, and an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. He has a particular interest in the history of cryptology and computing and is a Trustee of Bletchley Park. Please note: This lecture will be photographed and filmed. If you do not wish to appear in the photographs or footage, please let the photographer and/or videographer know. Should you have any further queries, please contact communications@kellogg.ox.ac.uk
The brain controls adiposity via central and peripheral neural circuits. We used molecular genetic tools such as optogenetics to probe the connection between peripheral sympathetic neurons and adipocytes. Further, we found this neuro-adipose junction to drive lipolysis via norepinephrine (NE) signaling (1) and that the SNS is necessary and sufficient for fat mass reduction (1,2). As obesity is a chronic inflammatory state, we set to define neuroimmune mechanisms that link inflammation to SNS neurons (3). We report the discovery of Sympathetic neuron-Associated Macrophages (SAMs) that directly regulate the extracellular availability of norepinephrine (NE). We identified the molecular mechanism by which SAMs import and metabolize norepinephrine (NE). Abrogation of the mechanism for the uptake of NE by SAMs increases NE availability, which in turn promotes thermogenesis and browning, and long-term amelioration of obesity independently of food intake (3). These results suggested that blockade of NE uptake outside the brain is sufficient to promote weight loss role thus we chemically modified an amphetamine, which targets the NE transporter, such that it does not cross the BBB. The anti-obesity effect of this novel drug will be discussed.
This paper proposes a tractable model of Bayesian learning on social networks in which agents choose whether to adopt an innovation. We study the impact of network structure on learning dynamics and diffusion. In tree networks, we provide conditions under which all direct and indirect links contribute to an agent’s learning. Beyond trees, not all links are beneficial: An agent’s learning deteriorates when her neighbors are linked to each other, and when her neighbors learn from herself. These results imply that an agent’s favorite network is the directed star with herself at the center, and that learning is better in “decentralized” networks than “centralized” networks. Please sign up for meetings below: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ywTkCR-sjBInsVwaWA_M7D2iF7QamyiaLY0qYxR1NOM/edit#gid=0
The widely held belief that the diagnosis of mental disorder is a matter exclusively for value-free science has been much reinforced by recent dramatic advances in the neurosciences. In this lecture I will use a detailed case study of delusion and spiritual experience to indicate to the contrary that values come into the diagnosis of mental disorders directly through the language of the diagnostic criteria adopted in such scientifically–grounded classifications as the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). Various competing interpretations of the importance of values in psychiatric diagnosis will be considered. Interpreted through the lens of the Oxford tradition of linguistic-analytic philosophy, however, diagnostic values in psychiatry are seen to reflect the complex and often conflicting values of real people. This latter interpretation has the direct consequence that there is a need for processes of assessment in psychiatry that are equally values-based as evidence-based. A failure to recognise this in the past has resulted in some of the worst abusive misuses of psychiatric diagnostic concepts. In the final part of the presentation I will outline recent developments in values-based practice in mental health, including some of its applications to diagnostic assessment, and in other areas of health care (such as surgery).
All ECI alumni based in and around Brussels are warmly invited to join the current ECM class for a dinner on their annual Brussels field trip. | From 7.30pm at Il Gallo Nero, 7 rue Franklin, 1000 Brussels (near Schuman Metro). Please RSVP to Christine.Baro@ouce.ox.ac.uk.
Combined Medical-Surgical Grand Round Chair: TBA
coming soon
Wildlife is threatened by challenges that are global in scale. These challenges are influenced by geopolitical relationships between countries, and their multiple, sometimes conflicting but often overlapping interests. Understanding and addressing the role of geopolitics in wildlife conservation requires diverse forms of expertise. The objective of this ground-breaking conference is to spark a scholarly and practically-minded conversation around Conservation Geopolitics – how it shapes global trends that threaten wildlife, and how it might work as a site of intervention for conservation futures. The forum will assemble leading figures from multiple disciplines, alongside conservation practitioners and policymakers, early career researchers and civil society groups. Through an innovative mix of plenary sessions, specialist paper sessions, workshops, agenda-setting processes and forum sessions, it will develop a conversation that transcends disciplinary boundaries.
Our side event at Meeting Minds, the Alumni Weekend in Tokyo, with alumnus Stuart Varnam-Atkin (Jesus 1968) as your tour guide on a stroll around the historical Ryogoku district of Tokyo to get a taste of both Old and New Japan.
coming soon
Improved understanding of water risks, of the drivers of poverty, and of institutional constraints is central to the development of policies and practices that aim to achieve and maintain water security for the poor. In an increasingly complex landscape of demographic, climatic, environmental, political and economic change, this requires moving beyond sectoral and disciplinary silos and traditional approaches which isolate drinking water from water resources. Since 2015, the DFID-funded REACH programme has been collaborating with government, practitioner and enterprise stakeholders to improve water security for millions of poor people in Africa and South Asia by delivering world-class science that influences policy and practice. On 27-29 March, REACH’s international conference on Water Security and Poverty will convene leading practitioners and scientists in Oxford to discuss key results to date from REACH in Bangladesh, Kenya and Ethiopia, and continue to shape major academic, policy and practice debates around water security and poverty.
My research has focused on two main aspects of neurobiology, the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s and trapping and accumulation of inhibitory receptors at synapses. In my laboratory, we employ cell biological, biochemistry and proteomic techniques in an effort to: i) discover how pathogenic mutations in PARK genes lead to neuronal death, ii) uncover new leads for genetic analysis, and iii) identify new therapeutic targets for disease modifying treatment. My current research focus is on the physiological and pathological role of the Parkinson’s protein LRRK2 in Wnt signalling and cytoskeletal function. In addition, I continue to research the role of proteins important for receptor clustering such as gephyrin and collybistin in inhibitory receptor clustering and intellectual disability.
The Creative Power of Metaphor https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/about/events/creative-power-metaphor #creativemetaphor 29th – 30th March 2019 at Worcester College, Oxford, UK Join us for a 2-day conference on the nexus between Metaphor, Linguistic Diversity, and Creativity. The conference will be structured around four themes. Each theme will be introduced in a keynote lecture, and developed in a plenary round-table discussion featuring selected panelists (see Call for Panel Participation below). Panelists will address general questions (see Research Questions below) as well as questions raised by the audience. Moreover, two extensive Poster sessions will be dedicated to present specific studies related to the four themes (see Call for Poster Presentations). The output of the conference will consist of a series of edited videoclips featuring the debates, which will be broadcasted on the Creative Multilingualism website and disseminated on relevant video channels and social media. For queries and clarifications please contact the organisers. Themes: 1. Metaphor and Linguistic Diversity Keynote speaker: Lera Boroditsky 2. Metaphor and Emotion Keynote speaker: Zoltán Kövecses 3. Metaphor and Communication Keynote speaker: Gerard Steen 4. Metaphor and Creativity Keynote speaker: Rachel Giora Call for Panel Participation (plenary discussion, 4 panelists per panel) Each panel is a round-table discussion designed to explore issues related to the theme opened by the preceding keynote lecture, elucidating current thinking on areas relevant to the theme, and debating matters of controversy. We invite expressions of interest in participation. Your submission should include the following: • The panel in which you wish to participate • Your name, affiliation and, if relevant, the URL for your web profile • What you consider to be the most burning questions concerning the theme (max. 150 words) • Your relevant expertise and research (max. 150 words) • Your main relevant publications. Call for Poster Presentations We invite abstracts (max. 300 words) for poster presentations that are relevant to one or more of the four themes of the conference. Your abstract should include the following: • The theme or themes of the conference your poster will address • Your name, affiliation and, if relevant, the URL for your web profile • Your relevant research • Your research methods • Your findings and/or theoretical advances. Submissions We welcome submissions from early career researchers to the panels and posters. Please send submissions as email attachments to the following address: creativemetaphor2019@gmail.com DEADLINE: 7th NOVEMBER 2018. Registration Conference fee: £90 Reduced fee for students: £50 Registration will open in early December. The Organisers Professor Katrin Kohl Dr Marianna Bolognesi Dr Ana Werkmann Horvat The conference is part of the multi-institutional research programme Creative Multilingualism (www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Our research group is a large cross-disciplinary team of academics working on the nexus between linguistic diversity and creativity. The conference is being organised by Strand 1 of Creative Multilingualism: Embodying Ideas – the Creative Power of Metaphor: https://www.creativeml.ox.ac.uk/research/metaphor. The event is also endorsed by RaAM, the international Network for Researching and Applying Metaphor. We look forward to welcoming you in Oxford! THEMES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS Research questions on the four themes include, but are not limited to, the following: 1. Metaphor and Linguistic Diversity • What is the significance of linguistic diversity for metaphor theory? • How does linguistic diversity in metaphorical expression affect and interact with thought? • Is a unified metaphor theory that can account for the variability in linguistic data possible? • How are cultural differences actualized in metaphorical expressions? • Do truly universal metaphors exist? 2. Metaphor and Emotion • What is the connection between metaphor and emotion? Is it systematic across languages? • Are emotions more likely to be expressed using figurative language? • Is there a correlation between expression of emotion and creative use of metaphor? If so, is this universal or culturally specific? • To what extent are metaphors that are used to express emotions universal? Is there a systematic difference by comparison with other areas of expression? • How does multilingual competence relate to the interaction between metaphor and emotion? Does the expression of emotions using figurative language differ depending on whether the speaker is using a native language or a non-native language? 3. Metaphor and Communication • Is the use of metaphors favoured as a persuasive communicative device across languages or are there languages/cultures/cultural contexts in which metaphors are avoided for such a purpose? To what extent are creative and deliberate metaphors used in communication (e.g., in political speech) affected by cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variability? • Does the use of metaphor to change attitudes and opinions correlate with the conventionality/creativity of the chosen metaphors? • How and why does resistance to metaphor develop? • What is the role of figurative language use in multilingual settings and does this differ from such use in monolingual settings? 4. Metaphor and Creativity • Is metaphor an area of language that offers more scope for creativity than other areas of language? Is any correlation universal or culturally specific? • What are the differences in understanding creative vs. non-creative figurative language? • How are creative figurative expressions perceived by speakers and listeners? • What constitutes a good metaphor in terms of creativity? • Are speakers of different languages creative in different ways in metaphor use?
Coming soon
An Academic Industry Meeting Day (AIMday) is an innovative networking event that allows external organisations to set the agenda and gain academic perspective into industry challenges. This AIMday will focus on Advanced Therapies and Regenerative Medicine. Registration for academic scientists will open December 21st 2018, and the deadline for registration is March 27th 2019. For more information about AIMdays @ Oxford visit: https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/support-services/teams/business-development/networking-events/aimdays
The Oxford Spring School offers graduate students and researchers from universities across the UK and abroad a unique venue to learn cutting-edge methods in Social Science. The programme consists of a variety of advanced courses, which place different data analysis techniques within broader disciplinary trends towards mixed-methods research designs. Working with our world leading teachers and researchers in quantitative and qualitative methods, you will have the opportunity to choose the course subject options which suit you best. Oxford Spring School 2019 will take place Monday 8 April to Friday 12 April. Applications are open until 28 January. Apply now: https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/spring-school/spring-school-applications.html?schoolid=517
Following the discovery of the first bacterial pathogens in the late 19th century, knowledge about microbes and viruses, pathways of transmission, and possible clinical and chemotherapeutic interventions has grown exponentially. Across the globe, researchers, medical practitioners, and patients alike routinely refer to a canon of ideal-type disease definitions and organisms. What is less well known is how these ideal types were created. Far from being ‘out there’ in nature, the pathogens causing diseases like typhoid, cholera, yellow fever, or malaria had to be brought into the laboratory for isolation and culturing, their taxonomies had to be agreed on by the wider research community, a set of standardised organisms had to be archived in type collections across the world. In order to be useful in the field, new diagnostic tests moreover had to guarantee the reliable identification of discovered disease agents, and global infrastructure had to revamped to guarantee the replicability of laboratory conditions across space. Creating international disease standards was not only time and resource consuming but often resulted in prolonged struggles over disease definitions and scientific prestige. In April of 2019, the workshop “Standards and Their Containers” will bring together researchers from across the medical humanities to explore the power struggles, technologies, collections, and organisms used to standardise disease in the modern era. Presentations are expected to examine not only the pathogens themselves, but the laboratory networks and animal containers used to culture, transport, and standardise disease. By taking as a starting point the premise that diseases are not stable identities but are constantly redefined and standardised to fit the needs of the societies affected by them, this workshop encourages participants to see how conventional histories of modernization change when seen from the perspective of microbial, rather than human infrastructure invention. We invite applications for 20-minute presentations from all interested scholars at all stages of their careers. We particularly encourage graduate students and early career scholars to apply. There are limited funds available for defraying the cost of travel to Oxford. The deadline for applications is 15 January 2019. Please send an abstract and a CV to aro.velmet@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk and claas.kirchhelle@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk For more information: https://www.hsmt.ox.ac.uk/event/standards-and-their-containers-global-history-pathogen-and-vector-standardisation
Led by Professor Andrea Cipriani, the course is designed to enhance understanding and expertise in carrying out systematic reviews and meta-analysis. It is aimed at psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health professionals, pharmacists and researchers in neuroscience and related disciplines. The course content will include lectures, group work, hands-on tutorials and supervised statistical sessions. Course participants will have plenty of opportunity to network and interact with speakers, as well as, to present their own work and receive feedback from a panel of experts. Programme overview: Day 1: How to write a protocol, conduct the search strategy & statistical analysis Day 2: How to carry out a systematic review & meta-analysis of RCTs (focus on Cochrane & GRADE) Day 3: How to conduct a meta-analysis of observational studies & individual patient data
The Moore Laboratory investigates the molecular pathophysiology of Parkinson’s. The majority of Parkinson’s cases occur in a sporadic manner although 5 to 10 percent of cases are inherited, with causative mutations identified in at least eight genes. The Moore Laboratory studies the normal biology and pathobiology of gene products that cause inherited Parkinson’s, including the common leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2, PARK8), the retromer component VPS35 (PARK17), the E3 ubiquitin ligase parkin (PARK2), and the lysosomal P5-type ATPase ATP13A2 (PARK9).
Understanding information flows and their changes in the brain requires a comprehensive map of neural structures at all levels, similar to those of Google Earth for continents, countries, cities, and streets. By integrating multiscale imaging technologies, I propose a practical approach aiming for mapping individual neurons, cellular organelles, synapses and single molecules in the entire Drosophila brain. I will discuss how the generated connectome map helps us to classify cell types, predict information flows, and manipulate target neurons that orchestrate complex behaviors. Our long-term goal is to construct the Drosophila engram and understand how learning and memory change the decision.
More details to follow
Day 1 of the course meets the requirements for the HEE TV Train the Trainer (Educational Supervisor) certification for consultants. Once you have completed this day, you will have the opportunity to go on to compile a portfolio, which with successful grading by OLI, will qualify you for the "fast-track" membership of the Academy of Medical Educators and gain the SEDA PDF Supporting Learning (accredited university/higher education level teaching award).
Infection/Microbiology: -- Acute General Medicine Firm D: -- Chair: TBA
How are connections wired up during brain development? Wiring occurs sequentially, first by forming a basic scaffold of connectivity according to strict molecular guidance cues and then the exact details of each circuit emerge by pruning and sculpting synapses. The process determining which synaptic connections remain and which are pruned is also genetically specified but in this case requires brain function. Prenatally, the brain generates its own internal neural activity patterns to jump-start the sculpting process. After birth as sensory systems such as vision mature, experience of the external world takes over to influence brain wiring during developmental critical periods. Neural activity and sensory experience regulate expression of sets of genes including several previously thought to act only in the immune system. These activity-regulated genes- including Major Histocompatibility Class I family members and Paired immunoglobulin-like receptor B- are required in neurons for synapse pruning and plasticity. Unexpectedly, they may also contribute to excessive synapse pruning in Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the baby's brain is not a miniature of the adult, but rather is a dynamically changing structure in which neural activity and experience ultimately select and stabilize essential details of neural circuitry that make each of us different from one another.
Clinical Immunology: -- Dermatology: -- Chair: TBA
coming soon
Oncology: -- Gastroenterology: Dr Tom Thomas, Dr Holm Uhlig and Dr Simon Travis -- Chair: TBA
Saïd Business School is pleased to welcome Freya Stewart, Fine Art Group’s in house lawyer on Art and Law – provenance, title and all various things that come with that.
Mart Saarma's work has focused on the in vivo roles, therapeutic effects and receptors of the neurotrophic factors including GDNF and the novel neurotrophic factor CDNF discovered by his research group. They have shown that CDNF very efficiently protects and repairs dopamine neurons in vivo. Prof. Saarma’s work has been instrumental in understanding the therapeutic potential of these neurotrophic factors for neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s disease. He has published more than 200 scientific articles. His group has characterized several new GDNF family receptors and demonstrated that RET receptor tyrosine kinase is the signaling receptor for GDNF. Mart Saarma's research group is investigating the signalling and biological functions of GDNF family ligands and endoplasmic reticulum located CDNF/MANF neurotrophic factor families, both within and outside of the nervous system. They are also interested in the therapeutic potential of these proteins in various diseases, so they are testing their efficacy in animal models of Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, stroke and diabetes mellitus. One of the highlights of their research has been, in 2017, the initiation of phase I-II clinical trials of CDNF protein in Parkinson’s disease patients by the Finnish company Herantis Pharma Plc.
Clinical Genetics: -- Clinical Ethics: -- Chair: TBA
Coming soon
Renal: -- Respiratory: Dr Rachel Hoyles -- Chair: TBA
Haematology: -- Psychological Medicine: -- Chair: TBA
coming soon
Radiology: -- Cardiology: -- Chair: TBA
Group Leader Sonia Gandhi has expertise in the process of protein misfolding, in which smaller proteins, monomers, joining together to form larger proteins, oligomers, and how this process may drive organellar dysfunction and cell toxicity in neurodegeneration.
Medical Director's Office: -- Stroke Medicine: -- Chair: TBA
coming soon
Neurology: Prof David Beeson -- Acute General Medicine Firm C: -- Chair: TBA
Combined Medical-Surgical Grand Round OCDEM Chair: TBA
Celebrating 25 years of ECM. SoGE and Somerville College, Oxford. Booking will open in July 2019.
An evening to celebrate 15 years of our MSc course in Water Science, Policy and Management, and the publication of a book written by WSPM faculty and alumni. Booking will open in May 2019.
Our departmental programme, including our annual Herbertson Lunch. Speakers TBC. Booking will open in late June 2019.
Celebrating 50 years since matriculation. Booking will open in May 2019.
