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This study was conducted in order to map European research in chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs). It was intended to assist the European Commission and other research funders to identify gaps and overlaps in their portfolios, and to suggest ways in which they could improve the effectiveness of their support and increase the impact of the research on patient care and on the reduction of the incidence of the CRDs. Articles and reviews were identified in the Web of Science on research in six non-communicable respiratory diseases that were published in 2002-13 from 31 European countries. They represented only 0.8% of biomedical research output but these diseases accounted for 4.7% of the European disease burden, as measured by Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), so the sub-field is seriously under-researched. Europe is prominent in the sub-field and published 56% of the world total, with the UK the most productive and publishing more than France and Italy, the next two countries, combined. Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) were the diseases with the most publications and the highest citation rates. They also received the most funding, with around two acknowledgments per paper (in 2009-13), whereas cystic fibrosis and emphysema averaged only one. Just over 37% of papers had no specific funding and depended on institutional support from universities and hospitals.

In 1952, Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) published his novelInvisible Man, which transformed the dynamics of American literature. The novel won the National Book Award, extended the themes of his early short stories, and dramatized in fictional form the cultural theories expressed in his later essay collectionsShadow & ActandGoing to the Territory. InShadowing Ralph Ellison, John Wright traces Ellison's intellectual and aesthetic development and the evolution of his cultural philosophy throughout his long career. The book explores Ellison's published fiction, his criticism and correspondence, and his passionate exchanges with-and impact on-other literary intellectuals during the Cold War 1950s and during the culture wars of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Wright examines Ellison's body of work through the lens of Ellison's cosmopolitan philosophy of art and culture, which the writer began to construct during the late 1930s. Ellison, Wright argues, eschewed orthodoxy in both political and cultural discourse, maintaining that to achieve the highest cultural awareness and the greatest personal integrity, the individual must cultivate forms of thinking and acting that are fluid, improvisational, and vitalistic-like the blues and jazz. Accordingly, Ellison elaborated throughout his body of work the innumerable ways that rigid cultural labels, categories, and concepts-from racial stereotypes and fashionable academic theories to conventional political doctrines-fail to capture the full potential of human consciousness. Instead, Ellison advocated forms of consciousness and culture akin to what the blues and jazz reveal, and he portrayed those musical traditions as the best embodiment of the evolving American spirit. John Wright is associate professor of African American and African studies and English at the University of Minnesota and is faculty scholar for the Archie Givens, Sr., Collection of African American Literature and Life. He coedited, with Michael S. Harper,A Ralph Ellison Festival(a special volume of the Carleton Miscellany).

This paper maps key regulatory, governance and legal challenges associated with the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) in terms of convergent and divergent pressures within the global pharmaceutical sector. These include (i) convergent regulatory pressures associated with the European framework for pre-market licensing; (ii) convergent and divergent industry pressures with regard to drug discovery and manufacturing; and (iii) divergent and convergent market pressures associated with the supply, pricing and assessment of medicines. The UK's sovereign ambitions risk a loss of influence over the licensing and surveillance of pharmaceuticals under convergent regulatory and industry pressures to engage in unilateral participation in the European regime. Further, they also risk a loss of influence over processes for pricing and assessing the effectiveness of new treatment regimens under divergent market pressures from larger pharmaceutical markets outside the EU, notably the United States.

Buttressed by rounds of damning indictments from Amiri Baraka-Ellison's prime antagonist during the ideological trench warfare of the Black Arts Movement years-and in tandem with scholarly detractors who tally Ellison's ostensible sins of omission and commission, a seemingly authoritative chronicle of his solitary ambition, his vaunting and idiosyncratic hubris, his defensive withdrawal from intergenerational exchange, and his corollary but anticlimactic demise, etches itself onto the screen and into the archives. Since this oft-repeated frame story has gained considerable cachet with scholarly and now popular audiences, some cautionary words of countervailing recollection seem in order, which this essay will outline.

Background Mental health disorders (MHDs) constitute a large and growing disease burden in Europe, although they typically receive less attention and research funding than other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This study protocol describes a methodology for the mapping of MHD research in Europe as part of Mapping_NCD, a 2-year project funded by the European Commission which seeks to map European research funding and impact for five NCDs in order to identify potential gaps, overlaps, synergies and opportunities, and to develop evidence-based policies for future research. Methods The project aims to develop a multi-focal view of the MHD research landscape across the 28 European Union Member States, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, through a survey of European funding entities, analysis of research initiatives undertaken in the public, voluntary/not-for-profit and commercial sectors, and expert interviews to contextualize the gathered data. The impact of MHD research will be explored using bibliometric analyses of scientific publications, clinical guidelines and newspaper stories reporting on research initiatives. Finally, these research inputs and outputs will be considered in light of various metrics that have been proposed to inform priorities for the allocation of research funds, including burden of disease, treatment gaps and cost of illness. Discussion Given the growing burden of MHDs, a clear and broad view of the current state of MHD research is needed to ensure that limited resources are directed to evidence-based priority areas. MHDs pose a particular challenge in mapping the research landscape due to their complex nature, high co-morbidity and varying diagnostic criteria. Undertaking such an effort across 31 countries is further challenged by differences in data collection, healthcare systems, reimbursement rates and clinical practices, as well as cultural and socioeconomic diversity. Using multiple methods to explore the spectrum of MHD research funding activity across Europe, this project aims to develop a broad, high-level perspective to inform priority setting for future research.

On 1 January 2001, Australia celebrated the centenary of its federal Constitution. Throughout its history, the Australian federal system has proved both resilient and flexible, serving the Commonwealth through the trials of depression, total war, imperial decline, and economic reconstruction. The constitutional system has been developed through interpretation by the High Court and popular input via referendums, as well as by the ongoing process of intergovernmental relations. There has been an overall expansion of Commonwealth powers with the politics of nation-building, but the states remain significantly powerful although financially dependent on the Commonwealth. Given the institutional and popular success of Australian federalism, the challenges facing the Commonwealth in the new century are not expected to be domestic or constitutional, but strategic and economic: principally, how a smallish middle power should meet the difficulties of globalization and security from a position of relative isolation adjacent to Asia in the southern Pacific.

In an interview, writer Sterling A. Brown answers questions concerning his highly acclaimed poems, short stories, and essays. Brown's thinking had a profound impact on African-American and American views on culture and literature.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that central aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) as a measure of aortic compliance or distensibility, might be an independent risk factor for mortality, in African-Caribbean, Indian sub-continent (South Asian) and European origin people in Britain. Design and Methods: From 1987-1990 we used a Doppler ultrasound technique [Wright et al, Clin Sci 1990; 78:463-468] to measure aortic PWV, with probes at the root of the neck (aortic arch waveform) and just above the bifurcation, with the person lying flat for >5mins,averaged over 45-120 cardiac cycles. 3 BPs were measured before and 3 after the PWV. Random samples of type 2 diabetes patients attending out-patients and a community-based population from the 3 ethnic groups (77% response) who were all glucose tolerance (GT) tested were the controls, as previously described [Lancet 1991; 338: 842-847]. Participants’ death certificates were tagged and obtained via the NHS central register. Results: 232 Europeans (Eur.), 151 South Asians (SA) and 101 African-Caribbeans, were followed for 11 years, 242 women and 329 men; more men died (63.5% vs. 36.5%). At baseline, African- Caribbeans were slightly younger (58 yrs) than other groups (Eur. 62y, SA 60y) but despite higher BPs in both those still alive (144.6/ 83.2, vs. 138.5/ 77.1 (Eur.), 135.7/ 77.2 (SA) mmHg) and those who later died (156.3/ 87 vs. 150.3/ 79.8 and 153.3/ 80.4 mmHg), PWV was slower at 10.7 (95%CI 10-11.4) vs. 11.5 (11.1-12, Eur) and 11.3 (10.7-11.8, SA). At any given BP level, PWV was faster in those who died. In Cox regression models, adjusting for baseline differences in variables and follow-up, mortality was independently predicted by age (6, 4-9, % increase per year older, p<0.0001), sex (women 38, 11-55, % less, p=0.06), PWV (38, 8 - 81) % per m/sec, p<0.0001) which displaced BP, GT status (47, 17-84, % increase for each category with normoglycaemia as unity, p<0.001). Current smokers had a 62 (10-238) % excess mortality (p=0.01) while risk was reduced for Caribbeans (0.38, 0.22-0.67, % of other groups, P<0.01). Conclusions: Aortic PWV predicts mortality across all degrees of glucose tolerance, displacing SBP, perhaps because it is further down the causal pathway. Those dying during follow-up, at any level of BP, have stiffer vessels either before or after diagnosis of diabetes. Despite high blood pressure, people of African-Caribbean origin retain a degree of protection from premature vascular mortality, in line with reduced national rates of coronary heart disease.

James Bryce's analysis of American federalism made it possible for the Australian founders to reproduce federal institutions on the American model without replicating the republican and empirical ideas that underpinned them in the United States Constitution. Bryce's account in The American Commonwealth (1888) appealed to Australia's founders because it was suited to their needs. Bryce was English, and, like a sensible nineteenth-century Englishman, he argued that U. S. institutions had little to do with intellectual product. Instead, they were largely English institutions adapted to American purposes. Reading Bryce, Australia's founders assumed that if federal institutions had little to do with abstract theory, and had simply been adapted to American circumstances, they might also be adapted to Australian circumstances. Thus, Bryce's approach to American federalism allowed Australia's founders to substitute their own colonial tradition of parliamentary democracy under the Crown for the republican principles of rights and the separation of powers that underlie the U.S. Constitution.