The challenges facing public libraries in the Big Society: The role of volunteers, and the issues that surround their use in England

The use of volunteers in English public libraries is nothing new, however their use is becoming ever greater and one may argue that we are increasingly seeing a mixed economy of public library provision, in the wider arena of the Big Society. This paper presents the findings of a Delphi Study of 15 library managers undertaken as part of a Professional Doctorate exploring the challenges facing public libraries in England today, particularly focusing on volunteer use. An overview of relevant supporting literature is provided to help contextualize the research, particularly focusing on concepts such as the political background surrounding policy development, community engagement, the Big Society, and volunteering. Explanation of how the Delphi Study was conducted is given, together with a discussion of the key findings. Results show that opinions of library managers cover a broad spectrum. Although volunteer use is generally viewed by the respondents as a good thing, with potential to further enhance a service and aid community engagement, there are also a number of concerns. These concerns particularly relate to the idea of the volunteer as a replacement to paid staff rather than an enhancement to the service. Other key concerns relate to the quality of service provision, the rationale behind volunteer use, and the capacity of communities to deliver. Volunteer use in public libraries on this scale is a new phenomenon, and the longevity of such a development is largely unknown. This raises the question as to whether this is simply a large scale ideological experiment, or a move to even greater community engagement

Pyoderma gangrenosum after caesarean section: a case report

BACKGROUND: Pyoderma gangrenosum is a rare ulcerative skin disease. The diagnosis is based on clinical features and excluding other causes of skin ulcers, as it does not have characteristic histopathology or laboratory findings. The etiology is poorly understood. Lesions can develop spontaneously, after surgery or after trauma. CASE PRESENTATION: We present the case of a 32-year-old woman with ulcerative wound defect after caesarean section. The wound was not healing despite standard wound care and antibiotic treatment. Pyoderma gangrenosum was diagnosed and after high dose corticosteroids wound healing started. CONCLUSION: Early diagnosis and subsequent treatment of pyoderma gangrenosum are crucial for limiting scar tissue. Diagnosis of pyoderma gangrenosum could easily be missed since gynaecologists are rarely confronted with this disorder

Cosmic ray diffusion near the Bohm limit in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant

Supernova remnants (SNRs) are believed to be the primary location of the acceleration of Galactic cosmic rays, via diffusive shock (Fermi) acceleration. Despite considerable theoretical work the precise details are still unknown, in part because of the difficulty in directly observing nucleons that are accelerated to TeV energies in, and affect the structure of, the SNR shocks. However, for the last ten years, X-ray observatories ASCA, and more recently Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Suzaku have made it possible to image the synchrotron emission at keV energies produced by cosmic-ray electrons accelerated in the SNR shocks. In this article, we describe a spatially-resolved spectroscopic analysis of Chandra observations of the Galactic SNR Cassiopeia A to map the cutoff frequencies of electrons accelerated in the forward shock. We set upper limits on the electron diffusion coefficient and find locations where particles appear to be accelerated nearly as fast as theoretically possible (the Bohm limit).Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Nature Physics (DOI below), final version available week of August 28, 2006 at http://www.nature.com/nphy

It’s not the size, it’s the relationship: from ‘small states’ to asymmetry

Debate about the definition of “small state” has produced more fragmentation than consensus, even as the literature has demonstrated its subjects’ roles in joining international organizations propagating norms, executing creative diplomacy, influencing allies, avoiding and joining conflicts, and building peace. However, work on small states has struggled to identify commonalities in these states’ international relations, to cumulate knowledge, or to impact broader IR theory. This paper advocates a changed conceptual and definitional framework. Analysis of “small states” should pivot to examine the dynamics of the asymmetrical relationships in which these states are engaged. Instead of seeking an overall metric for size as the relevant variable—falling victim in a different way Dahl’s “lump-of-power fallacy,” we can recognize the multifaceted, variegated nature of power, whether in war or peacetime

Prion protein amyloidosis with divergent phenotype associated with two novel nonsense mutations in PRNP

Stop codon mutations in the gene encoding the prion protein (PRNP) are very rare and have thus far only been described in two patients with prion protein cerebral amyloid angiopathy (PrP-CAA). In this report, we describe the clinical, histopathological and pathological prion protein (PrPSc) characteristics of two Dutch patients carrying novel adjacent stop codon mutations in the C-terminal part of PRNP, resulting in either case in hereditary prion protein amyloidoses, but with strikingly different clinicopathological phenotypes. The patient with the shortest disease duration (27 months) carried a Y226X mutation and showed PrP-CAA without any neurofibrillary lesions, whereas the patient with the longest disease duration (72 months) had a Q227X mutation and showed an unusual Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker disease phenotype with numerous cerebral multicentric amyloid plaques and severe neurofibrillary lesions without PrP-CAA. Western blot analysis in the patient with the Q227X mutation demonstrated the presence of a 7 kDa unglycosylated PrPSc fragment truncated at both the N- and C-terminal ends. Our observations expand the spectrum of clinicopathological phenotypes associated with PRNP mutations and show that a single tyrosine residue difference in the PrP C-terminus may significantly affect the site of amyloid deposition and the overall phenotypic expression of the prion disease. Furthermore, it confirms that the absence of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor in PrP predisposes to amyloid plaque formation

A critical review of smaller state diplomacy

In The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (1972: 402) highlights the effects of the general, overall weakness of smaller states vis-à-vis larger, more powerful ones in a key passage, where the Athenians remind the Melians that: “… since you know as well as we do that, as the world goes, right is only in question between equals in power. Meanwhile, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Concerns about the vulnerability of small, weak, isolated states have echoed throughout history: from Thucydides, through the review by Machiavelli (1985) of the risks of inviting great powers to intervene in domestic affairs, through 20th century US-led contemporary political science (Vital, 1971; Handel, 1990) and Commonwealth led scholarship (Commonwealth Secretariat, 1985). In the context of 20th century ‘Balkanization’, the small state could also prove unstable, even hostile and uncooperative, a situation tempting enough to invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbours: a combination, according to Brzezinski (1997: 123-124) of a power vacuum and a corollary power suction2: in the outcome, if the small state is ‘absorbed’, it would be its fault, and its destiny, in the grand scheme of things. In an excellent review of small states in the context of the global politics of development, Payne (2004: 623, 634) concludes that “vulnerabilities rather than opportunities are the most striking consequence of smallness”. It has been recently claimed that, since they cannot defend or represent themselves adequately, small states “lack real independence, which makes them suboptimal participants in the international system” (Hagalin, 2005: 1). There is however, a less notable and acknowledged but more extraordinary strand of argumentation that considers ‘the power of powerlessness’, and the ability of small states to exploit their smaller size in a variety of ways in order to achieve their intended, even if unlikely, policy outcomes. The pursuance of smaller state goals becomes paradoxically acceptable and achievable precisely because such smaller states do not have the power to leverage disputants or pursue their own agenda. A case in point concerns the smallest state of all, the Vatican, whose powers are both unique and ambiguous, but certainly not insignificant (The Economist, 2007). Smaller states have “punched above their weight” (e.g. Edis, 1991); and, intermittently, political scientists confront their “amazing intractability” (e.g. Suhrke, 1973: 508). Henry Kissinger (1982: 172) referred to this stance, with obvious contempt, as “the tyranny of the weak”3. This paper seeks a safe passage through these two, equally reductionist, propositions. It deliberately focuses first on a comparative case analysis of two, distinct ‘small state-big state’ contests drawn from the 1970s, seeking to infer and tease out the conditions that enable smaller ‘Lilliputian’ states (whether often or rarely) to beat their respective Goliaths. The discussion is then taken forward to examine whether similar tactics can work in relation to contemporary concerns with environmental vulnerability, with a focus on two other, small island states. Before that, the semiotics of ‘the small state’ need to be explored, since they are suggestive of the perceptions and expectations that are harboured by decision makers at home and abroad and which tend towards the self-fulfilling prophecy.peer-reviewe

Epigenetic engineering shows that a human centromere resists silencing mediated by H3K27me3/K9me3

Centromeres are characterized by the centromere-specific H3 variant CENP-A, which is embedded in chromatin with a pattern characteristic of active transcription that is required for centromere identity. It is unclear how centromeres remain transcriptionally active despite being flanked by repressive pericentric heterochromatin. To further understand centrochromatin’s response to repressive signals, we nucleated a Polycomb-like chromatin state within the centromere of a human artificial chromosome (HAC) by tethering the methyltransferase EZH2. This led to deposition of the H3K27me3 mark and PRC1 repressor binding. Surprisingly, this state did not abolish HAC centromere function or transcription, and this apparent resistance was not observed on a noncentromeric locus, where transcription was silenced. Directly tethering the reader/repressor PRC1 bypassed this resistance, inactivating the centromere. We observed analogous responses when tethering the heterochromatin Editor Suv39h1-methyltransferase domain (centromere resistance) or reader HP1α (centromere inactivation), respectively. Our results reveal that the HAC centromere can resist repressive pathways driven by H3K9me3/H3K27me3 and may help to explain how centromeres are able to resist inactivation by flanking heterochromatin

Is global democracy possible?

Scepticism about the possibility of a democratically governed global polity is often rooted in beliefs about ‘necessary conditions’. Some democracy scholars consider a transition to global democracy to be incompatible with necessary conditions for democratic governance, while some International Relations scholars consider it to be incompatible with necessary conditions for international structural change. This article assesses hypotheses and evidence about democratic transitions within states and transformations in the interaction among states and concludes that arguments based on necessary conditions are not compelling. This suggests that global democracy may be unlikely but it is not impossible