Quangos - What's in a name? Defining Quangos from a Comparative Perspective

Without definitional clarity the 'quango debate' is inherently flawed and meaningful progress undermined. A possible solution to this problem is proposed in this article by way of a subsectional map which aims to clarify the quango topography. This accepts the diversity inherent in the quango debate whilst allowing for increased clarity and focused research. This, the authors believe, is the only way forward for practitioners, academics and policy makers working within the sphere of quasi-government. There is a need to address precise forms or subsections of the quango continuum as studies or reforms which focus on one type of quango would not necessarily work if applied to all quangos, or quangos in other countries

The Labour Government, the Treasury and the £6 pay policy of July 1975

The 1974-79 Labour Government was elected in a climate of opinion that was fiercely opposed to government intervention in the wage determination process, and was committed to the principles of free collective bargaining in its manifestoes. However, by December 1974 the Treasury was advocating a formal incomes policy, and by July 1975 the government had introduced a £6 flat rate pay norm. With reference to archival sources, the paper demonstrates that TUC and Labour Party opposition to incomes policy was reconciled with the Treasury's advocacy by limiting the Bank of England‟s intervention in the foreign exchange market when sterling came under pressure. This both helped to achieve the Treasury's objective of improving the competitiveness of British industry, and acted as a catalyst for the introduction of incomes policy because the slide could be attributed to a lack of market confidence in British counter-inflation policy

'This is what democracy looks like' : New Labour's blind spot and peripheral vision

New Labour in government since 1997 has been roundly criticized for not possessing a clear, coherent and consistent democratic vision. The absence of such a grand vision has resulted, from this critical perspective, in an absence of 'joined-up' thinking about democracy in an evolving multi-level state. Tensions have been all too apparent between the government's desire to exert central direction - manifested in its most pathological form as 'control freakery' - and its democratising initiatives derived from 'third-way' obsessions with 'decentralising', 'empowering' and 'enabling'. The purpose of this article is to examine why New Labour displayed such apparently impaired democratic vision and why it appeared incapable of conceiving of democratic reform 'in the round'. This article seeks to explain these apparent paradoxes, however, through utilising the notion of 'macular degeneration'. In this analysis, the perceived democratic blind spot of New Labour at Westminster is connected to a democratic peripheral vision, which has envisaged innovative participatory and decentred initiatives in governance beyond Westminster

Democracy Matters: Lessons from the 2015 Citizens' Assemblies on English Devolution

The Citizens’ Assembly pilots on local democracy and devolution were the first of their kind in the United Kingdom. Organised by Democracy Matters — an alliance of university researchers and civil society organisations led by Professor Matthew Flinders — and funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, the Assemblies took place in Southampton and Sheffield towards the end of 2015

The watchdogs of 'Washminster' – parliamentary scrutiny of executive patronage in the UK

The role of legislatures in scrutinising executive patronage has received scant attention in the context of parliamentary democracy. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of public appointments in the UK. Presenting the results of an extensive programme of research, it reveals how select committees have accrued increasing powers to challenge ministerial appointments, and how this has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that raise critical concerns regarding the overall added-value of pre-appointment scrutiny. The article is therefore of comparative significance for theories of legislative scrutiny in particular and executive–legislature dynamics more broadly

Intrusive dike complexes, cumulate cores, and the extrusive growth of Hawaiian volcanoes

The Hawaiian Islands are the most geologically studied hot-spot islands in the world yet surprisingly, the only large-scale compilation of marine and land gravity data is more than 45 years old. Early surveys served as reconnaissance studies only, and detailed analyses of the crustal-density structure have been limited. Here we present a new chain-wide gravity compilation that incorporates historical island surveys, recently published work on the islands of Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i, and Ni‘ihau, and >122,000 km of newly compiled marine gravity data. Positive residual gravity anomalies reflect dense intrusive bodies, allowing us to locate current and former volcanic centers, major rift zones, and a previously suggested volcano on Ka‘ena Ridge. By inverting the residual gravity data, we generate a 3-D view of the dense, intrusive complexes and olivine-rich cumulate cores within individual volcanoes and rift zones. We find that the Hāna and Ka‘ena ridges are underlain by particularly high-density intrusive material (>2.85 g/cm3) not observed beneath other Hawaiian rift zones. Contrary to previous estimates, volcanoes along the chain are shown to be composed of a small proportion of intrusive material (<30% by volume), implying that the islands are predominately built extrusively

Democracy and the politics of coronavirus : trust, blame and understanding

This article explores the relationship between crises and democracy through a focus on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic. Its central argument is that to interpret the current pandemic purely in terms of its epidemiology and public health implications risks overlooking its potentially more significant socio-political consequences. This is because the challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis have themselves become overlaid or layered-upon a pre-existing set of concerns regarding the performance, efficiency and capacity of democratic political structures. The aim of this article is to try and understand and warn against what might be termed a rather odd form of cross-contamination whereby the cynicism, negativity and frustration concerning politicians, political processes and political institutions that existed before the coronavirus outbreak is allowed to direct, define and automatically devalue how democratic structures are subsequently judged in terms of how they responded to the challenge. As such, this article focuses on the link between the Coronavirus crisis and the democratic crisis; or, more precisely, the risk that the Coronavirus crisis may mutate into and fuel a broader crisis of democracy

Adapting an Effective Interface for a Passive Solar System with a Truncated Pyramid Concentrator

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters of Science by Shirley M. Flinders on December 3, 2003

Epigenetic changes mediated by polycomb repressive complex 2 and E2a are associated with drug resistance in a mouse model of lymphoma

Background: The genetic origins of chemotherapy resistance are well established; however the role of epigenetics in drug resistance is less well understood To investigate mechanisms of drug resistance we performed systematic genetic epigenetic and transcriptomic analyses of an alkylating agent-sensitive murine lymphoma cell line and a series of resistant lines derived by drug dose escalation &nbsp;&nbsp;Methods: Dose escalation of the alkylating agent mafosfamide was used to create a series of increasingly drugresistant mouse Burkitt's lymphoma cell lines Whole genome sequencing DNA microarrays reduced representation bisulfite sequencing and chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing were used to identify alterations in DNA sequence mRNA expression CpG methylation and H3K27me3 occupancy respectively that were associated with increased resistance &nbsp;&nbsp;Results: Our data suggest that acquired resistance cannot be explained by genetic alterations Based on integration of transcriptional profiles with transcription factor binding data we hypothesize that resistance is driven by epigenetic plasticity We observed that the resistant cells had H3K27me3 and DNA methylation profiles distinct from those of the parental lines Moreover we observed DNA methylation changes in the promoters of genes regulated by E2a and members of the polycomb repressor complex 2 (PRC2) and differentially expressed genes were enriched for targets of E2a The integrative analysis considering H3K27me3 further supported a role for PRC2 in mediating resistance By integrating our results with data from the Immunological Genome Project (Immgenorg) we showed that these transcriptional changes track the B-cell maturation axis &nbsp;&nbsp;Conclusions: Our data suggest a novel mechanism of drug resistance in which E2a and PRC2 drive changes in the B-cell epigenome; these alterations attenuate alkylating agent treatment-induced apoptosi

The Big Society and the Conjunction of Crises: Justifying Welfare Reform and Undermining Social Housing

The idea of the “Big Society” can be seen as culmination of a long-standing debate about the regulation of welfare. Situating the concept within governance theory, the article considers how the UK coalition government has justified a radical restructuring of welfare provision, and considers its implications for housing provision. Although drawing on earlier modernization processes, the article contends that the genesis for welfare reform was based on an analysis that the government was forced to respond to a unique conjunction of crises: in morality, the state, ideology and economics. The government has therefore embarked upon a programme, which has served to undermine the legitimacy of the social housing sector (most notably in England), with detrimental consequences for residents and raising significant dilemmas for those working in the housing sector