Workforce development: is there a paradigm shift?

Editorial for a Special Issue on Workforce Development in the alcohol and other drugs field published in Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy

The Alcohol Health Alliance: the emergence of an advocacy coalition to stimulate policy change

This paper provides an account of the emergence and early development of the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA), a coalition of organizations including medical bodies, charities and alcohol health campaigners. Launched in 2007, the AHA aimed to re-frame awareness of alcohol consumption and related harms, to gain greater policy saliency for health compared to criminal justice priorities, and to shift policy towards adopting a population approach as compared to a targeted approach to intervention. The strategies used by the AHA to mobilize support and re-frame understanding of the alcohol problem, were successful in the short term. The alliance benefited from their links with established powerful institutions that helped them secure a strong presence within the policy arena and in the media, not least by forging relationships with political allies. However, in the longer term, it may be difficult to maintain a position of strength and to combat pre-existing entrenched relationships that favour competing alternative perceptions of the alcohol problem and the appropriate policy response

Object orientation without extending Z

The good news of this paper is that without extending Z, we can elegantly specify object-oriented systems, including encapsulation, inheritance and subtype polymorphism (dynamic dispatch). The bad news is that this specification style is rather different to normal Z specifications, more abstract and axiomatic, which means that it is not so well supported by current Z tools such as animators. It also enforces behavioural subtyping, unlike most object-oriented programming languages. This paper explains the proposed style, with examples, and discusses its advantages and disadvantages

Modelling Molecular Motors as Folding-Unfolding Cycles

We propose a model for motor proteins based on a hierarchical Hamiltonian that we have previously introduced to describe protein folding. The proposed motor model has high efficiency and is consistent with a linear load-velocity response. The main improvement with respect to previous models is that this description suggests a connection between folding and function of allosteric proteins.Comment: 5 pages RevTeX, 2 Postscript figures, replaced due to LaTeX proble

Conformational spread as a mechanism for cooperativity in the bacterial flagellar switch

The bacterial flagellar switch that controls the direction of flagellar rotation during chemotaxis has a highly cooperative response. This has previously been understood in terms of the classic two-state, concerted model of allosteric regulation. Here, we used high-resolution optical microscopy to observe switching of single motors and uncover the stochastic multistate nature of the switch. Our observations are in detailed quantitative agreement with a recent general model of allosteric cooperativity that exhibits conformational spread—the stochastic growth and shrinkage of domains of adjacent subunits sharing a particular conformational state. We expect that conformational spread will be important in explaining cooperativity in other large signaling complexes

A phenomenological density-scaling approach to lamellipodial actin dynamics

The integration of protein function studied in vitro in a dynamic system like the cell lamellipodium remains a significant challenge. One reason is the apparent contradictory effects that perturbations of some proteins can have on the overall lamellipodium dynamics, depending on exact conditions. Theoretical modeling offers one approach for understanding the balance between the mechanisms that drive and regulate actin network growth and decay. Most models use a \bottom-up" approach, involving explicitly assembling biochemical components to simulate observable behaviour. Their correctness therefore relies on both the accurate characterisation of all the components and the completeness of the relevant processes involved. To avoid potential pitfalls due to this uncertainty, we used an alternative \top-down" approach, in which measurable features of lamellipodium behaviour, here observed in two different cell types (HL60 and B16-F1), directly inform the development of a simple phenomenological model of lamellipodium dynamics. We show that the kinetics of F-actin association and dissociation scales with the local F-actin density, with no explicit location dependence. This justifies the use of a simplified kinetic model of lamellipodium dynamics that yields predictions testable by pharmacological or genetic intervention. A length-scale parameter (the lamellipodium width), emerges from this analysis as an experimentally accessible probe of network regulatory processes

'I like money, I like many things'. The relationship between drugs and crime from the perspective of young people in contact with criminal justice systems

Based on research undertaken as part of the EU funded EPPIC project, this paper aims to update and elaborate on the relationship between drug use and offending behaviours by exploring variations within a cross-national sample of drug-experienced young people in touch with criminal justice systems. Adopting a trajectory-based approach, interviews were undertaken with 198 young people aged 15–25 in six European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and UK). Data were analysed by applying the Bennett and Holloway categorization of the drugs-crime link, with a focus on the concept of social exclusion as developed by Seddon. Three main types of mechanisms (economic, pharmaceutical, and lifestyles) are used to interpret the data, showing how the relationship between drugs and offending can vary according to type of substances and over time. Furthermore, it can be associated with very different degrees of social exclusion and needs. The results suggest that while economic inequalities still play key roles in explaining drug use and offending, both behaviours can originate from a state of relative deprivation, resulting from the contradictions inherent in ‘bulimic societies’ that raise aspirations and desires while providing young people scarce opportunities for self-realisation and social recognition

Force-Velocity Relations of a Two-State Crossbridge Model for Molecular Motors

We discuss the force-velocity relations obtained in a two-state crossbridge model for molecular motors. They can be calculated analytically in two limiting cases: for a large number and for one pair of motors. The effect of the strain-dependent detachment rate on the motor characteristics is studied. It can lead to linear, myosin-like, kinesin-like and anomalous curves. In particular, we specify the conditions under which oscillatory behavior may be found.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, REVTeX; thoroughly revised version; also available at http://www.physik.tu-muenchen.de/~frey

Viewpoint-based testing of concurrent components

The use of multiple partial viewpoints is recommended for specification. We believe they also can be useful for devising strategies for testing. In this paper, we use Object-Z to formally specify concurrent Java components from viewpoints based on the separation of application and synchronisation concerns inherent in Java monitors. We then use the Test-Template Framework on the Object-Z viewpoints to devise a strategy for testing the components. When combining the test templates for the different viewpoints we focus on the observable behaviour of the application to systematically derive a practical testing strategy. The Producer-Consumer and Readers-Writers problems are considered as case studies

Calculating Dilepton Rates from Monte Carlo Simulations of Parton Production

To calculate dilepton rates in a Monte Carlo simulation of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, one usually scales the number of similar QCD processes by a ratio of the corresponding differential probabilities. We derive the formula for such a ratio especially for dilepton bremsstrahlung processes. We also discuss the non-triviality of including higher order corrections to direct Drell-Yan process. The resultant mass spectra from our Monte Carlo simulation are consistent with the semi-analytical calculation using dilepton fragmentation functions.Comment: 14 pages in RevTex, 3 figures in uuencoded files, LBL-3466