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Many measurements on soft condensed matter (e.g., biological and materials) systems track low-dimensional observables projected from the full system phase space as a function of time. Examples are dynamic structure factors, spectroscopic and rheological response functions, and time series of distances derived from optical tweezers, single-molecule spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations. In many such systems the projection renders the reduced dynamics non-Markovian and the observable is not prepared in, or initially sampled from and averaged over, a stationary distribution. We prove that such systems always exhibit non-equilibrium, time asymmetric dynamics. That is, they evolve in time with a broken time-translation invariance in a manner closely resembling aging dynamics. We identify the entropy associated with the breaking of time-translation symmetry that is a measure of the instantaneous thermodynamic displacement of latent, hidden degrees of freedom from their stationary state. Dynamical time asymmetry is a general phenomenon, independent of the underlying energy surface, and is frequently even visible in measurements on systems that have fully reached equilibrium. This finding has fundamental implications for the interpretation of many experiments on, and simulations of, biological and materials systems.

Ensemble docking corresponds to the generation of an "ensemble" of drug target conformations in computational structure-based drug discovery, often obtained by using molecular dynamics simulation, that is used in docking candidate ligands. This approach is now well established in the field of early-stage drug discovery. This review gives a historical account of the development of ensemble docking and discusses some pertinent methodological advances in conformational sampling.

Both the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 2010 and Lord Levene’s ‘Defence Reform’ report of 2011 have again drawn attention to the variable performance of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in acquisition matters and highlighted a number of underlying reasons along with a series of recommendations on how it could address them. Such a situation, where the MoD has to conduct a major transformation while managing a vast portfolio of activity, has been made all the more critical by the impact of the financial crisis and economic recession. To help reduce the UK’s budgetary deficit, defence is expected to deliver savings estimated at £4.3 billion by 2014-2015. This article looks at the current issues that are facing the UK MoD during this time of transition in respect of defence acquisition.

Peter D Antill, Jeremy CD Smith and David M Moore explain how the Ministry of Defence rushed through a set of urgent solutions to provide better protection for deployed personnel travelling in Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) and Protected Patrol Vehicles (PPVs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.