Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

A decrease in the abundance and biodiversity of intestinal bacteria within the dominant phylum Firmicutes has been observed repeatedly in Crohn disease (CD) patients. In this study, we determined the composition of the mucosa-associated microbiota of CD patients at the time of surgical resection and 6 months later using FISH analysis. We found that a reduction of a major member of Firmicutes, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, is associated with a higher risk of postoperative recurrence of ileal CD. A lower proportion of F. prausnitzii on resected ileal Crohn mucosa also was associated with endoscopic recurrence at 6 months. To evaluate the immunomodulatory properties of F. prausnitzii we analyzed the anti-inflammatory effects of F. prausnitzii in both in vitro (cellular models) and in vivo [2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulphonic acid (TNBS)-induced] colitis in mice. In Caco-2 cells transfected with a reporter gene for NF-kappaB activity, F. prausnitzii had no effect on IL-1beta-induced NF-kappaB activity, whereas the supernatant abolished it. In vitro peripheral blood mononuclear cell stimulation by F. prausnitzii led to significantly lower IL-12 and IFN-gamma production levels and higher secretion of IL-10. Oral administration of either live F. prausnitzii or its supernatant markedly reduced the severity of TNBS colitis and tended to correct the dysbiosis associated with TNBS colitis, as demonstrated by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis. F. prausnitzii exhibits anti-inflammatory effects on cellular and TNBS colitis models, partly due to secreted metabolites able to block NF-kappaB activation and IL-8 production. These results suggest that counterbalancing dysbiosis using F. prausnitzii as a probiotic is a promising strategy in CD treatment.

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Faecalibacterium prausnitzii is an anti-inflammatory commensal bacterium identified by gut microbiota analysis of Crohn disease patients

Clinical epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease: incidence, prevalence, and environmental influences

Earnings Management and Investor Protection: An International Comparison

The received wisdom tells us that the rigidity and inflexibility of European job markets relative to that in the United States is the reason why Europe has high unemployment. This paper argues that this broad brush analysis is simply too vague to be useful. Indeed it is probably positively misleading. Many labor market institutions that conventionally come under the heading of rigidities have no observable impact on unemployment and may otherwise serve a useful purpose.

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Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America

Higher education is fundamental to both national and global contemporary knowledge economies. It is also a driver for social change (see for example) which crucially includes making higher education available and relevant to a wider section of society and improving the mobility and relevance of its graduates in the workplace. New tools are required to integrate such developments with the sector’s traditional functions of teaching and research. However, every student is different, each programme is different, each university is different and the needs of professions and nations also differ. Therefore, research leading to the development of such tools is fundamental to the development of modern society. One such tool, whose importance has recently been recognised, is the use of profiles at institutional, regional (geographic, cultural or discipline) and programme levels. Such profiles are a concise, precise and portable description of the particular academic entity. They have diverse uses ranging from ranking of institutions, aiding academic programme selection by a student, facilitating graduate mobility and as a tool for professional accreditation. We have, therefore, selected the topic of profiles for the first issue of the Tuning Journal for Higher Education. Whilst we cannot hope to cover the totality of this subject in one issue, we trust that it will stimulate debate and further promote research on the types, design and uses of profiles. The first and perhaps the most important question we address is what should be profiled? Published online : 4 July 2014

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New Programme Profiles for a New Society: An Introduction

Abstract In light of the global challenges of the Anthropocene, including biodiversity loss, there are increasing calls for positive, inspirational futures to motivate action and help steer away from current, largely unsustainable trajectories. The three horizons framework is an approach in future studies that engages with normative futures and helps develop pathways towards them. However, this approach has not been applied to explore opportunities for biodiversity conservation with farming communities. We developed a template to apply the three horizons framework in combination with storytelling to explore positive futures for agricultural landscapes with rich biodiversity. We then applied this method over two workshops with a rural community in a farming landscape of south-eastern Australia facing typical contemporary challenges of an ageing population, climate change, biodiversity loss and global market uncertainty. In the workshops, six pathways for change were developed. We unpack these narratives of change to contrast problem framings, future aspirations and mechanisms of change and discuss implications for conservation. We discuss our approach to integrating diverse perspectives and values, creating actionable knowledge and highlight the role of governance and policy to support individual and collective agency. We conclude that the three horizons approach has the potential to create actionable knowledge through locally meaningful narratives of change, and thus influence priorities and empower local action. For lasting on-ground change, leadership and effective cross-scale governance is required. 

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Using the three horizons approach to explore pathways towards positive futures for agricultural landscapes with rich biodiversity

Cet entretien avec Paul Ryan, chercheur britannique, permet de comparer les differents sujets et methodologies de recherche sur le theme de l'integration professionnelle des jeunes tels qu'ils sont developpes et exploites dans le reste de l'Europe. Les diverses conditions de cette insertion et des conditions de travail des jeunes diplomes sont egalement abordees...

L'insertion professionnelle en France : les apports d'une comparaison internationale

Both the United States and Europe have recently seen rising concern over the quality of youth economic activity. To some extent this reflects a refocusing of interest within the area of youth employment as the baby boom cohort moved out of the youth labor market and the problem of youth joblessness came once again to be viewed primarily in terms of race [Welch 1979; Rees 1986, OECD 1988, eh. 1]. To some extent it reflects increased awareness of the implications of new technology and intensified international competition - in particular, the view that a broadening of the vocational preparation of young people is increasingly important for both enterprise productivity and individual adjustment to economic change [Steedman and Wagner 1989; OECD 1989; Garonna and Ryan 1991a; Finegold 1991]. In such a context, casual employment and narrow training appear increasingly unacceptable. According to a well-established interpretation, young Americans who do not pursue higher education experience a "moratorium period" between adolescence and adulthood in which they are excluded from good jobs (in terms of pay, training and promotion prospects) and pass their time instead in the relatively unrewarding conditions of casual or secondary employment. This description of the fate of youth has been supported during the last two decades by a variety of authors associated with dualist interpretations of the labor market [Piore 1972; Osterman 1980; Wial 1988]. It has been amplified and adjusted by economists not wedded to the dualist paradigm [Brown 1982; Freeman and Wise 1982; Reubens 1983]. The evidence supporting the dualist picture of youth employment and training in the US has however remained nonstatistical, relying on case studies of uncertain generalisability.2 Statistical assessment has however been attempted for Europe. Patterns of youth employment in European industry have been analysed statistically in a framework suggested by dualist descriptions of the US youth market [Marsden and Ryan 1986, 1989]. The question therefore arises: can the analysis be applied successfully to the youth labor market which inspired it in the first place, i.e., the United States? Our analysis of youth employment patterns in the US is driven also by a comparative interest in the possibility that youth employment is structured differently in Europe and the US. The greater importance of delayed and part-time labor market entry in the US may mean quite different youth employment patterns from those in Britain and Germany, where entry is relatively early and mostly full-time and where significant numbers go into apprenticeship [OECD 1988, eh. 1; Garonna and Ryan 1991a]. The results of comparative research into such issues have become increasingly important for policy towards youth employment and training policy in Europe and the US [Ryan 1991; Finegold and McFarland 1991]. In section one we develop the analysis of youth employment patterns in segmented labor markets. The data and variables used to evaluate this model are described in section two. Our results are

Paul Ryan

Papers

New Programme Profiles for a New Society: An Introduction

Using the three horizons approach to explore pathways towards positive futures for agricultural landscapes with rich biodiversity

L'insertion professionnelle en France : les apports d'une comparaison internationale

Youth Employment Patterns in Segmented Labor Markets in the US and Europe1

The Immobilization of Lactoperoxidase and β-Fructofuranosidase on Glass and on Sand, by the Metal-Link Method