Professor Archie Brown on redefining, revolutionary and transformational political leaders

In a previous post, Archie Brown argued that the notion that ‘strong leaders’ are better equipped to win elections and display leadership is flawed, with the opposite in many cases being true. In the second part of an online Q&A session with Professor Brown, he explains the concept of redefining and transformational leaders – those political leaders who do, for better or worse, fundamentally change the polity in which they operate

All power to 10 Downing Street: Johnson's first major reshuffle and the perils of presidentialism

Despite ups and downs in prime ministerial power over the years, the general tendency has been to expect the prime minister to do more than in the past, writes Archie Brown. He traces this tendency back to Margaret Tharcher’s premiership, which gave a huge impetus to the idea that political power belongs to the prime minister rather than to the government. He explains how an expansive interpretation of this idea was taken several steps further in Boris Johnson’s first significant cabinet reshuffle

Political leadership in the Cold War’s ending: Thatcher and the turn to engagement with the Soviet Union

Archie Brown draws on his latest book to discuss Margaret Thatcher’s role in the end of the Cold War, which he argues was more significant than commonly believed. He writes that no alternative Conservative leader would have enjoyed the close relationship she enjoyed with Reagan, while it is highly questionable whether an alternative British prime minister would have made such a strong impact on Gorbachev

Professor Archie Brown on the ‘dangerous myth’ of the strong leader

In politics, it is generally seen as a good thing to be considered a ‘strong leader’, with Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher often used as examples of the dovetailing of strength, electoral success, and policy achievement. But is this necessarily the case? In a new book, ‘The Myth of the Strong Leader‘, Archie Brown argues that this widely held belief is not only wrong, but most likely dangerous, too. Democratic Audit asked Professor Brown to answer some questions about his argument, with part one of two appearing below

Accelerating Systemic Change Network (ASCN): Demonstrating Impact

The goals of this presentation for participants was: •Learn about the Accelerating Systemic Change Network (ASCN), why it is important, what it can do for you, and how you can get involved. •Learn about work done by ASCN on demonstrating impact and how measurement and communication can be used to promote change. •Learn about areas where educational research is needed and you can contribute

Impact of preeclampsia on cardiovascular events: an analysis of the Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study

Preeclampsia is a recognised cause of an increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events when compared to the background risk in women who did not have hypertensive disorders during pregnancy. The Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS) is a population cohort of more than 20,000 members of the Scottish population. Using the Scottish Morbidity Records, we linked the women in the GS:SFHS cohort to validated maternity and inpatient admission data. This allowed us to robustly identify cardiovascular outcomes in the form of inpatient admission for cardiovascular events, We also aimed to explore the risk of pregnancy on future cardiovascular events, using data from nulliparous and parous women.In total, 9732 women were selected. 3693 women were nulliparous, and after study exclusion, 5253 women with 9583 pregnancies remained. Pregnancies from 1980 until the end of the study period of 1st of July 2013 were included. Cardiovascular events occurred in 9.0% of nulliparous women, 4.2% of women with pregnancies and in 7.6% of women with a history of preeclampsia. A total of 218 parous women experienced cardiovascular events, 25 in the preeclampsia group and 193 in the normotensive group.Survival analysis was undertaken, with index pregnancy taken as first pregnancy in normotensive controls and first preeclampsia pregnancy in cases. Endpoint of interest was admission to hospital with first cardiovascular event. After further exclusions a total of 169 cardiovascular events occurred in the normotensive pregnancy group and 20 in the preeclampsia group. Women with a history of preeclampsia were more likely to have cardiovascular events later in life than women with normotensive deliveries., This was statistically significantly different on Kaplan Meier survival analysis, (log rank Mantel-Cox p-value < 0.001). The women in our study were middle-aged, within 33 years of pregnancy, with a mean age of 53 years in the preeclampsia cardiovascular events group.Our study supports the urgent need for uniform guidelines and implementation to improve the health in women with this medical history. Increased awareness among the public of the cardiovascular risk associated with PE is vital to aid uptake of cardiovascular prevention programmes

Structural biology and phylogenetic estimation

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62633/1/388527a0.pd

Continuation of Studies on Development of ODS Heat Exchanger Tubing

The Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Center (NETL), has initiated a strategic plan for the development of advanced technologies needed to design and build fossil fuel plants with very high efficiency and environmental performance. These plants, referred to as 'Vision 21' and FutureGen programs by DOE, will produce electricity, chemicals, fuels, or a combination of these products, and possibly secondary products such as steam/heat for industrial use. MA956 is a prime candidate material being considered for a high temperature heat exchanger in the 'Vision 21' and FutureGen programs. This material is an oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy; however, there are some gaps in the data required to commit to the use of these alloys in a full-size plant. To fill the technology gaps for commercial production and use of the material for 'Advanced Power Generation Systems' this project has performed development activity to significant increase in circumferential strength of MA956 as compared to currently available material, investigated bonding technologies for bonding tube-to-tube joints through joining development, and performed tensile, creep and fire-side corrosion tests to validate the use and fabrication processes of MA956 to heat exchanger tubing applications. Development activities within this projected has demonstrated increased circumferential strength of MA956 tubes through flow form processing. Of the six fabrication technologies for bonding tube-to-tube joints, inertia friction welding (IFW) and flash butt welding (FBW) were identified as processes for joining MA956 tubes. Tensile, creep, and fire-side corrosion test data were generated for both base metal and weld joints. The data can be used for design of future systems employing MA956. Based upon the positive development activities, two test probes were designed and fabricated for field exposure testing at 1204 C ({approx}2200 F) flue gas. The probes contained tube portions with FBW and IFW welded MA956. Field testing of the probes and remaining heat exchanger design activity will be performed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory under DOE Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725

Field Evaluation of Deltamethrin and Ivermectin Applications to Cattle on Culicoides Host-Alighting, Blood-Feeding, and Emergence

Publication history: accepted - 2 August 2019, published - 8 August 2019The impact of topical applications of deltamethrin and ivermectin to cattle on Culicoides spp. landing and blood-feeding was studied in this work using sticky traps mounted on Friesian heifers’ backs. There was no effect of the insecticides on total numbers of Culicoides trapped or the proportion engorged. Deltamethrin and ivermectin treatment did not prevent blood-feeding on these animals. Deltamethrin did result in significant Culicoides mortality as evidenced by the numbers of dead midges combed from heifers’ upper flanks. The proximity of engorged midges on traps to dead midges in the hair suggests that blood-feeding took place despite midges receiving an ultimately lethal dose of deltamethrin. Ivermectin application resulted in a smaller proportion of nulliparous than parous females caught. There was no significant effect of ivermectin on the numbers of Culicoides that emerged from dung samples (but p was small at 0.095 for the Obsoletus group Culicoides). In cases of suspect animal imports, pour-on or spray applications of deltamethrin could reduce the risk of onward transmission of bluetongue virus.This project was funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Northern Ireland) through the Evidence and Innovation Strategy (Project 16/3/07-48109)

Sweet-spot mapping through formation evaluation and property modelling using data from the Goldwyer Formation of the Barbwire Terrace, Canning Basin

The Goldwyer Formation of the Canning Basin has been regarded as a highly prospective shale play. This study assesses the potential prospectivity of this source rock as an unconventional hydrocarbon resource. Considering the sparsity of wells penetrating the Middle Ordovician Goldwyer across the vast under-explored area of the Canning Basin, a basin-wide study of the source rock is not warranted. Goldwyer assessment of the Barbwire Terrace, a subdivision of the Canning Basin, is carried out instead. This assessment includes the estimation of key shale play properties, such as, total organic carbon, total porosity, water saturation, and brittleness index. Each property was estimated from available well data by testing multiple estimation methods. TOC values were derived from multiple regressions of different well data. A simplified Archie's equation was used to estimate water saturation. Density porosity method was primarily used for total porosity estimations. Sonic data along with density were utilized to estimate brittleness index. Each property was then modelled across the Goldwyer Formation within the terrace. This provided geostatistical estimates on the propagation of such properties. In order to generate sweet spot maps for the Barbwire Terrace, averaged maps of different properties were combined in a weighted manner. This approach attempts to simplify the complexity of unconventional resource assessment, which therefore has provided a single product evaluating the prospectivity of the Goldwyer as a hydrocarbon resource. Results have shown that TOC and porosity are mostly the deciding factors for the prospectivity of this source rock, given that their values can be too small where the Goldwyer is deemed non-prospective. Nonetheless, sweet-spot maps show that most prospective zone is the Upper Goldwyer (Goldwyer I), followed by the upper parts of the Lower Goldwyer (Goldwyer III). More specifically, southern flanks of north-western and middle regions of the Barbwire Terrace tend to be more prospective. A stricter approach where cut-off values were applied for each property showed that sweet-spot maps are only prospective in the southern flanks of the middle Barbwire Terrace of Goldwyer I