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This paper interrogates the future aims and politics of design around product quality, design and climate change, and the design of services. It defends technological innovation and questions today’s widely held but rather narrow obsession with subjective user experiences. The paper led to an invitation from the Design Management Institute to present a paper on ‘Responsible design and the triple bottom line’ to 170 attendees at the 32nd International Design Management Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia, US, September 2007. The paper critiques the orientation toward emotions of both theories of leadership (cf Bennis and Thomas, Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders; Goleman, McKee, and Boyatzis, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence; both Harvard Business School Press, 2002) and theories of user experience (cf Pine and Gilmore, The Experience Economy, Harvard, 1999). It argues that the idea that the user’s experience is a kind of unrecognised key to corporate success has been the mantra of design for perhaps two decades. It suggests that old-fashioned criteria for quality – price, cost of ownership, reliability, ease of maintenance, durability – still count and that to downplay these is a mistake. Around climate change, the paper makes a case study of fuel efficiency in cars, to contend that the more thoughtful we are about energy supply processes and the emissions that attend them, the more thoughtless and unaware we can afford to be about the consumption of energy. Around service design, the paper makes a case study of solar panels, advancing the view that the priority environmentalism assigns to economy in resource utilisation can lead to a multiplication of labour-intensive services, when an approach that works toward automation would be more sensible

Background Children who experience difficulties in face- to- face interaction, understanding language and developing literacy can benefit from the provision of communication aids such as speech synthesizers and specialist software applications that support their social participation and learning. The Communication Aids Project ( CAP) was a national initiative by the Department for Education and Skills in England, aimed at supporting and developing the provision of communication aids to children. This paper presents an analysis of the number and type of applications to CAP. In so doing, the paper begins to explore how the need for communication aids might be understood in England.Methods The analysis was carried out on a database of 3060 anonymized records, representing applications to CAP between January 2002 and January 2004.Results Applications to CAP were made on behalf of children with a broader range of disabilities than might be assumed, including a relatively high proportion of children with autistic spectrum disorder. Rates of application to CAP varied in line with Local Education Authority population size [ e. g. total pupils, total pupils with special educational needs ( SEN)], rather than indicators of regional variation in SEN provision ( e. g. proportion of population identified as having SEN).Conclusions Within a context of changing services to children in England and increasing emphasis on the plurality and contestability of services, the relevance of these findings for service providers and service commissioners is discussed.

This analytical paper investigates the significance and meaning of ‘probation values’ and challenges the enterprise of generating ‘lists’ of values without sufficient regard to the practices they enjoin or rule out. The conceptual link between values and action is thus reaffirmed. The paper also argues that since punishment tries to give effect to so many different objectives and to express many incompatible attitudes, punishment is always likely to occasion frustration and disappointment.

This note examines the decision of the Court of Appeal in R (Gazette Media Company Ltd) v Teesside Crown Court1 where the Court was asked to rule on the legality of an order under s.39, Children and Young Persons Act 1933 purporting to ban the identity of the victim and defendants in a prosecution. The facts of the prosecution are set out below but the interesting issues that arise from this decision come not so much from the facts and decision (which was, to an extent, inevitable) but rather from the fact that the current law does not, in our opinion, adequately protect children from secondary victimisation and that the courts have erred in their current understanding of the legal position.

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) coordinate various stress responses. Although the effects of stressors on mPFC and BLA activity have been previously examined, it remains unclear to what extent stressors affect functional interactions between these regions. In vivo electrophysiology in the anesthetized rat was used to examine mPFC and BLA activity simultaneously in response to FG-7142, a benzodiazepine receptor partial inverse agonist that mimics various stress responses, in an attempt to model the effects of stressors on corticolim- bic functional connectivity. Extracellular unit and local field potential (LFP) record- ings, using multielectrode arrays positioned in mPFC and BLA, were conducted under basal conditions and in response to systemic FG-7142 administration. This drug increased mPFC and BLA unit firing at the lowest dose tested, whereas higher doses of FG-7142 decreased various burst firing parameters in both regions. Moreover, LFP power was attenuated at lower (

In a recent paper addressing Weber's economic sociology, Peukert has claimed: Weber's outline and research program is not really helpful for present-day economic sociology and heterodox economics because Weber had a rather narrow understanding of rationality and the economy. He did not consider the heterodox underpinnings of, for example, the Austrian school (uncertainty, human agency, etc) in his programmatic contributions. (2004: 988) In contrast to Peukert's claims, this article will argue the following: 1) Weber's economic sociology was heavily influenced by the "heterodox underpinnings" of Austrian economics. 2) Far from not considering uncertainty, Weber placed it at the heart of his economic sociology. It is precisely through the incorporation of uncertainty that a sociological investigation of economic action is differentiated from an economic investigation. Hence Weber's writings emphasize uncertainty to a greater extent than the contemporaneous writings of, for example, the Austrian economist Mises. 3) Weber's conception of rationality, especially formal rationality, is not based on a "narrow understanding of rationality." However, his conception cannot be adequately understood independently of the role that uncertainty plays in his analysis. I Weber and Menger WITH REGARD TO THE ISSUES of uncertainty and relationship to "heterodoxy," one of the main issues identified as problematic by Peukert is Weber's relationship to Menger. According to Peukert: Weber was strongly influenced by Austrian marginalism. It is thus surprising that ... Weber is more neoclassical than Menger. As Streissler has shown ... there exist strong heterodox, subjectivist, and uncertainty elements in Menger that Weber ignores. They could have been building blocks for an alternative economic sociology. (Peukert 2004: 998) (1) However, this final suggestion in fact encapsulates precisely what Weber does accomplish. Weber utilizes Menger's emphasis on uncertainty and subjectivism in order to develop an economic sociology of economic action that is distinct from an economic inquiry into the same subject matter. In order to understand the basis for this distinction, it is necessary to briefly consider Menger's methodological position. In his Problems of Economics and Sociology (1963), Menger argued that theoretical economics was compromised of exact theoretical science and realistic-empirical science. Exact theoretical science was concerned with investigating the economic laws that governed ideal phenomena. In contrast, realistic-empirical science studied real phenomena. In terms of Peukert's charge against Weber, what is particularly significant is that exact science abstracts from factors such as ignorance, error, and noneconomic motives. In short, the exact sciences abstract from uncertainty. In contrast, the realist-empirical sciences allow for the effects of uncertainty. Menger's position was that theoretical economics required both forms of inquiry: Both the exact and the realistic orientation of theoretical research have the aim of making us understand theoretically all phenomena of the economy, each in its way ... the function of each of them consist in making us understand the total realm of economic phenomena. (Menger 1963: 68) In his Principles of Economics Menger again acknowledged that "uncertainty ... is of the greatest practical significance in human economy" (Menger 1976: 71). However, Menger's Principles was an exercise in exact theoretical science, abstracting from the effects of uncertainty. Consequently, his account of price formation acknowledges that there is a "certain range of indeterminacy within which price formation can take place ... economic influences do not ... fix the point at which price formation, of necessity, must take place" (Menger 1976: 199). …

This article considers the ultimately successful quest for film to be regarded as, not a mere imitator of literature, but the ‘new literature’, or as Allardyce Nicoll intimates in 1936, ‘the new Shakespeare’. This seemingly persistent conception of film as the new Shakespeare accounts, in part, for long-standing prejudicial attitudes to literature on screen, including cinematic appropriations of Shakespeare, over the last two centuries.

This paper offers a critical commentary on the essentialist concept of ethnicity, which, it is argued, underpins the discourse of transcultural health-care. Following a consideration of the difficulties that ensue from the way in which ethnicity has been theorised within transcultural nursing in particular, the paper turns to a consideration of alternative ways of thinking about ethnicity, which have emerged from more recent social anthropology and postmodernism. It addresses the question of how to therorise ethnicity in a way that does not entail its reification as a set of fixed cultural properties, and makes some tentative suggestions for the possibility of a critical culturalist approach to difference and healthcare practice, which must include a consideration of racisms.

The findings presented in this paper are part of an independent evaluation study of the Communication Aids Project (CAP). The study was carried out between July 2003 and April 2004 and looked at the impact of CAP on children receiving communication aids and evaluated the CAP strategy of assessment and delivery. In this paper the views of education staff and speech and language therapists who were working with communication aid users in school are presented. The professionals who were interviewed provided positive feedback on the existence of CAP, on the assessment for the communication aid, particularly where the use of the aid in the classroom was considered, and on the children's increased participation in classroom and learning activities since receiving the aid. They also highlighted the issue of managing parents' expectations regarding the use of aids and the value of and need for continued training for professionals working with communication aids in the classroom. The authors of this article, Jannet Wright, senior lecturer, Chris Donlan, senior lecturer, Caroline Newton, lecturer, and Michael Clarke, lecturer, from University College London; Claire Lister, from the Institute of Child Health, London; and Jasmina Cherguit, assistant psychologist, draw upon their findings to develop recommendations for future policy, practice and professional development.

This article explores the introduction of a new system of patient and public involvement (PPI) in the NHS in England. After seeking to clarify the terminology found in this field, the article explores the background to the new system, why proposals were brought forward by the government and how they were implemented. The article also examines the main criticisms of the new system, which include under-resourcing, lack of capacity, complexity and fragmentation. The article concludes by drawing out lessons for future reform in this field.

This single authored article publishes the findings of the only national research about the impact of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 on the life chances of young people leaving care. It is widely quoted by professionals, academics and government, and the author is the only academic whose leaving care research is referenced in the DfES 2006 Green Paper Care Matters. As a result of the methodology and national scope of the study, it is used by professionals, campaigners, academics alike to improve young people’s outcomes and lobby for improved services.

Naturally occurring molecules with putative cancer chemopreventive properties such as the phytoalexin resveratrol (3,5,4′-trihydroxystilbene) are lead molecules that guide the design of novel agents with improved pharmacologic properties. The synthetic resveratrol analog 3,4,5,4′-tetramethoxystilbene (DMU-212) has been shown to possess stronger antiproliferative properties in human colon cancer cells than resveratrol. We tested the hypothesis that DMU-212 is also a more potent inhibitor of adenoma development in the ApcMin+ mouse, a model of human intestinal carcinogenesis. ApcMin+ mice received either stilbene derivative with the diet (0.2%), and adenomas were counted after experiments were terminated. Resveratrol and DMU-212 decreased adenoma load by 27% and 24%, respectively, compared to untreated controls. Cyclooxygenase (COX) enzymes are important mechanistic targets of resveratrol, and we investigated whether DMU-212 interferes with the expression and activity of COX in human colon cells. Incubation of HCA-7 cancer cells for 24–96 hr with either stilbene derivative (1–50 μM) decreased prostaglandin E-2 (PGE-2) production, but only resveratrol decreased COX-2 protein expression. In mice, which received either stilbene derivative (0.2%) for 3 weeks with their diet, PGE-2 levels in the intestinal mucosa were reduced by between 45% and 62% compared to mice on control diet. While resveratrol inhibited enzyme activity in purified COX preparations, DMU-212 failed to do so. The PGE-2 decrease seen with DMU-212 in cells and in vivo is probably mediated via its metabolites. The results suggest that alteration of the resveratrol molecule to generate DMU-212 does not abrogate its ability to decrease adenoma number in ApcMin+ mice or to interfere with PGE-2 generation in cells. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

There is a growing awareness within project-based sectors of the relationship between performance and managers' competencies. This article reports on research that investigated the competency profile of ‘superior’ project managers working within the construction industry, one of the most complex and dynamic project-based industrial sectors. The study combined an assessment of both their behavioural competencies and job-task competencies. The results reveal that while their job-task competencies are highly specific to the industry in which they work, the behavioural competencies of superior project managers are mostly generic in nature and apply to a range of other management positions. This research shows how it is practically possible to identify the competency profile of superior managers and utilise this framework for managing the performance of this key management group.

On Track started life in 2000 as part of the Crime Reduction Programme in the Home Office, but was shifted to the Children and Young People's Unit less than a year later. This paper describes tensions that emerged during the first phase of the evaluation of this innovative programme, designed to provide interventions for four to twelve year olds at risk of becoming involved in crime. Analysis of interventions and multiple intervention is presented, together with reflections on the need for a different kind of evaluation and a more positive approach to services for children and young people.

This paper argues that a health consumer movement has developed in the United Kingdom over the last decade. Drawing on two empirical studies of groups that promote and/or represent the interests of patients, users and carers, it argues that groups formed by people with personal experience of a condition are now more widespread. Feelings of pain and loss can lead to the identification of others in a similar position, and to the formation of groups and action in the political sphere. Research shows that groups share a common discourse and follow similar participative practices, and there is extensive networking. Informal and formal alliances have formed to pursue joint action and indicate a wider health consumer movement. As governments have also increased the opportunities for participation, this has the potential for patients and carers to shape services in ways more responsive to their needs.

The uptake of the three species of the drug model fluorescein (fluorescein sodium salt (FNa), fluorescein free acid (F), and fluorescein diacetate (FDA)) by zeolite NaX and the mesoporous zeotype MCM-41 was investigated as well as their release rates into solutions at pH 7 and pH 4.5. UV/Vis analysis was carried out at a wavelength of 490 nm. Uptakes of the sodium salt of 9 % for zeolite X and 14 % for MCM suggest little penetration of the pores. The use of ethanol as the loading solvent for F resulted in little uptake for both zeolitic materials due to the successful competition of the ethanol for binding sites. Use of acetone (weaker proton acceptor) as loading solvent significantly improved the uptake of F to 17 % and 12 % for zeolite X and MCM, respectively, whilst the uptake of FDA in acetone increased still further to 22 % and 17 % for zeolite X and MCM, respectively. Generally there was a large initial release of the fluorescein analogues from the surface of the zeolites with very little further increase over time. The prescence of an esterase enzyme in the release medium of FDA tripled the release from MCM to 15 % but left the release from zeolite X unaffected at 6 %. The results obtained show that uptake of fluorescein and its analogues is dependent on the loading solvent used, the amount released is influenced by not only the solvent but the pH and the presence of enzymes in the release medium.

This paper developed a new algorithm, which combines the spectral element method with elastic viscous splitting stress method, for viscoelastic fluid in a planar contraction channel. This is an important topic at the cutting edge of research in computational rheology. The technique has been used in some other important rheological flow problems of academic and industrial interest. It provides a bench-mark solution for these viscoelastic flow problems and is currently used in industrial applications including plastic molding and cable coating.

There is a relative paucity of evidence on the management of labour in smaller firms. Research that has been undertaken, while recognising the heterogeneity of the sector, does note the prevalence of informality regarding employee relations. Such informality could be challenged by the increasing regulation of the employment relationship following the election of successive Labour governments since 1997. To illuminate this discussion further, evidence drawn from a study of employment regulation is offered. A number of smaller firm owners and their employees were interviewed to ascertain their views on the impact of regulation on the employment relationship. Owners were largely resistant to it but felt they could accommodate changes with relatively little disruption to their existing approach to labour management. Meanwhile, most employees felt the effect of regulation would be muted due to their position as smaller firm labour.

There has been little work on ethnicity related to pressure ulcers in general and little or nothing specific to South Asians, and the Pakistani ethnic group in particular.To explore the relevance of ethnicity in pressure ulcers.All admissions over a 5-year period to a District General Hospital in Burton, United Kingdom (UK) were considered where data were present on Waterlow Score, ethnicity and pressure sore status. Logistic regression analysis was conducted using ethnicity and other variables to predict ulcer formation. RESULTS; Age is predictive, but ethnicity was not found to be a significant predictor.There is no evidence that members of the Pakistani ethnic minority are at higher risk than the majority White population in Burton, with respect to pressure ulcers.

traditional approach in England before Morgan,88 which exemplified possibility regulation rather that probability regulation, at least when adjudicating a challenged transaction inter partes.89 Lord Scarman's 'inexplicability' test thus seems too high, but it was settled quite without reference to the fiduciary nature of the regulation involved in relational undue influence cases. Lord Browne-Wilkinson may have suspected as much by his reservation in Pitt, but it was a reservation virtually ignored in the House's approach to the suspicion of abuse criterion in Etridge. Certainly, Etridge cannot be regarded as the last word on the subject. All that it can safely be regarded as is further confirmation of the House's lack of conceptual focus that has, since Morgan, epitomised its approach to the law of undue influence.

After years of ignoring the problem of domestic violence, criminal justice agencies are now becoming more actively involved in the issue. In the National Probation Service (NPS) this is taking the form of running groupwork programmes for men convicted of offences against women partners or ex-partners. While the 1990s saw the development of practitioner-led programmes linked to local multi-agency initiatives, the service is now looking to incorporate domestic violence into its national strategy of Pathfinder Crime Reduction Programmes. This article reviews these developments and, drawing on a study of two local initiatives working with male perpetrators in the Midlands, highlights tensions around values, resourcing, and issues of power and control in the centralising of this particular area of offending behaviour work. It underlines the importance of open and ongoing dialogue between agencies working primarily with perpetrators or victims of domestic violence in order to ensure that women's safety is not compromised and concludes that the Home Office Probation Unit responsible for accrediting programmes faces a difficult task in relation to those addressing domestic violence.

This article is in one of the leading UK journals on criminal justice, it also has an international reputation. The article was the first to explore and apply the notion of responsibilisation to probation’s practice with risky offenders and as such has been quite widely cited. The article presents a good balance of theory from contemporary post-modern theorists with application to practice issues in work with offenders, and draws on the author’s own research.

The changing nature of local political leadership in Britain over the past 25 years has received scant attention from political scientists. This article argues that changes in the roles and functions of local authorities have had a marked impact on the nature of local political leadership. Three phases (operational, transitional and collaborative) are identified and leadership roles are related to changes in the political context of local government. The fundamental tasks of leadership have not changed but what has changed is the balance or relative emphasis between them and the way they have been interpreted. While elected local authorities cannot ignore the implications of the changed external agenda – notably the advent of new forms of executive leadership – the way they respond still bears the mark of the local political culture.

In this paper a case study of a small firm engaged in producing packaged software in the Australian 'information industry' is conducted in order to shed light on the nature of control over the labour process of software development. It is shown that the interplay of human agency and structural forces means employees are largely unaware of the exercise of control over their work.

The first biologically active non-planar analogues of the toxic anti-cancer agent, fascaplysin, have been produced; we present the design, synthesis and biological activity of three tryptamine derivatives.

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is an attractive tool for proteomics research as it can be used to rapidly characterize protein secondary structure in aqueous solution. Recently, a number of secondary structure prediction methods based on reference sets of FTIR spectra from proteins with known structure from X-ray crystallography have been suggested. These prediction methods, often referred to as pattern recognition based approaches, demonstrated good prediction accuracy using some error measure, e.g., the standard error of prediction (SEP). However, to avoid possible adverse effects from differences in recording, the analysis has been mostly based on reference sets of FTIR spectra from proteins recorded in one laboratory only. As a result, these studies were based on reference sets of FTIR spectra from a limited number of proteins. Pattern recognition based approaches, however, rely on reference sets of FTIR spectra from as many proteins as possible representing all possible band shape variation to be related to the diversity of protein structural classes. Hence, if we want to build reliable pattern recognition based systems to support proteomics research, which are capable of making good predictions from spectral data of any unknown protein, one common goal should be to build a comprehensive protein infrared spectra databank (PISD) containing FTIR spectra of proteins of known structure. We have started the process of developing a comprehensive PISD composed of spectra recorded in different laboratories. As part of this work, here we investigate possible effects on prediction accuracy achieved by a neural network analysis when using reference sets composed of FTIR spectra from different laboratories. Surprisingly low magnitude of difference in SEPs throughout all our experiments suggests that FTIR spectra recorded in different laboratories may be safely combined into one reference set with only minor deterioration of prediction accuracy in the worst case.

This study demonstrates how computational methods can be successfully used for automated identification of structure-sensitive regions of protein FTIR spectra. This information can then be successfully used for rapid quantification of protein secondary structure. The method developed is of interest to both academic researchers as well as pharmaceutical companies engaged in protein analysis. The impact factor of the journal is 5.735.