The voluntary and community sector in Blyth Valley - developing a vision for the future

1. Sustainable Cities Research Institute has produced this report following research carried out on behalf of Blyth Valley Local Strategic Partnership. The research involved documentary analysis, case studies, and interviews and focus groups involving key players within the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS). 2. The VCS is regarded as a significant contributor to the area’s economy and a key service delivery agent. Broadly defined, it contributes about 3.8% of regional GDP and employs an estimated 4.4% of the region’s workforce. An estimated 40,000 organisations are thought to be active in the region. 3. A number of external pressures influencing the sector were identified: the need to engage with LSPs and play a full part in other local and regional networks; the need to respond to changes in governance structures; funding changes such as the end of SRB funding; and the need for strong infrastructure organisations to support the sector and enhance communication systems. 4. Contributors identified the following strengths of Blyth Valley VCS: good partnership working; dedicated volunteers; flexibility and speed of response; valuable training provision; high quality community centres; excellent community links, including involving hard to reach people; value for money; and diversity within the sector. 5. However, it was thought that the following areas could be improved upon: the relationship with the LSP; some community buildings being underused; heavy reliance on a few key staff and volunteers; structural issues, which can result in duplication of resources; heavy demands in terms of time, resources and skills; inflexible monitoring systems; the problems of short-term funding; level of social economy activity; and the need to promote the sector. 6. A number of aspirations were identified for the sector: better funding arrangements and more long-term funding; developing the infrastructure by building more centres outside Blyth town; more centralised organisational support for VCS agencies; more social economy activity, and closer working between agencies. 7. The preferred option for the future of the VCS was the development of a new infrastructure organisation that can, where appropriate, incorporate the existing infrastructure organisations and provide support to the sector as a whole. It was thought that the option of establishing this new organisation as a Development Trust should be further explored. 8. The new organisation could act as a ‘One Stop Shop’ providing advice and support on fundraising, management, human resources, health and safety, insurance, and training. It could also lend weight to funding applications; help to develop more sustainable relationships with the Council and LSP, thus freeing the Community Development Team to develop its strategic role; enhance levels of co-ordination within the sector; and develop a dedicated research facility for the sector. 9. To minimise the range of concerns expressed about how the process of change is to be managed, it is recommended that the next step should be to commission a feasibility study that will explore the various options regarding the process of change - and the establishment of the new organisation - in greater detail. 10. This report will be launched at an event held for Blyth Valley VCS in Spring 2004

Community elections for regeneration partnerships : a new deal for local democracy?

The health of local democracy in the UK is being undermined by the very low turnouts in local government elections. As the recent government pilot schemes for changing the conduct of local elections have recognised, there is an urgent need to get people more involved at the local level, to reconnect voters with the local political system and to help reduce the level of cynicism towards local government. However, there is one area of local electoral politics in which there are clear signs of democratic renewal: turnouts are up, candidates are well-known and clearly identify with their community, young people and minority ethnic communities have a voice and local people are interested and enthused by a distinctively 'local' brand of politics. This area is the 'non-statutory' community elections increasingly used within the New Deal for Communities (NDC) regeneration initiative. This article examines the experience of community elections in NDC areas - particularly focussing on Newcastle's West Gate - and argues that the elections provide examples of good practice and innovation that could be used to enhance the conduct of local government elections. Moreover, community elections could also make a positive contribution to revitalising the overall health of local democracy by providing a 'complementary' channel of representation to that provided by elected local councillors

k-d Darts: Sampling by k-Dimensional Flat Searches

We formalize the notion of sampling a function using k-d darts. A k-d dart is a set of independent, mutually orthogonal, k-dimensional subspaces called k-d flats. Each dart has d choose k flats, aligned with the coordinate axes for efficiency. We show that k-d darts are useful for exploring a function's properties, such as estimating its integral, or finding an exemplar above a threshold. We describe a recipe for converting an algorithm from point sampling to k-d dart sampling, assuming the function can be evaluated along a k-d flat. We demonstrate that k-d darts are more efficient than point-wise samples in high dimensions, depending on the characteristics of the sampling domain: e.g. the subregion of interest has small volume and evaluating the function along a flat is not too expensive. We present three concrete applications using line darts (1-d darts): relaxed maximal Poisson-disk sampling, high-quality rasterization of depth-of-field blur, and estimation of the probability of failure from a response surface for uncertainty quantification. In these applications, line darts achieve the same fidelity output as point darts in less time. We also demonstrate the accuracy of higher dimensional darts for a volume estimation problem. For Poisson-disk sampling, we use significantly less memory, enabling the generation of larger point clouds in higher dimensions.Comment: 19 pages 16 figure

Forkhead box transcription factor regulation and lipid accumulation by hepatitis C virus

We have previously shown that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection modulates the expression of forkhead box transcription factors, including FoxO1 and FoxA2, which play key roles in gluconeogenesis and β-oxidation of fatty acid, respectively. The aim of the present study was to determine the role of forkhead box transcription factors in modulating lipid metabolism. HCV infection or core protein expression alone in transfected Huh7.5 cells increased expression of sterol regulatory element binding protein 1c (SREBP-1c) and its downstream target, fatty acid synthase (FASN), which are key proteins involved in lipid synthesis. Knockdown of FoxO1 by small interfering RNA in HCV-infected cells significantly decreased SREBP-1c and FASN expression. Further, HCV infection or core protein expression in Huh7.5 cells significantly decreased the expression of medium-chain acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase (MCAD) and short-chain acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase (SCAD), involved in the regulation of β-oxidation of fatty acids. Ectopic expression of FoxA2 in HCV-infected cells rescued the expression of MCAD and SCAD. Oil red O and neutral lipid staining indicated that HCV infection significantly increases lipid accumulation compared to that in the mock-infected control. This was further verified by the increased expression of perilipin-2 and decreased activity of hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) in HCV-infected hepatocytes, implying increased accumulation of neutral lipids. Knockdown of FoxO1 and ectopic expression of FoxA2 significantly decreased HCV replication. Taken together, these results suggest that HCV modulates forkhead box transcription factors which together increase lipid accumulation and promote viral replication. IMPORTANCE Hepatic steatosis is a frequent complication associated with chronic HCV infection. Its presence is a key prognostic indicator associated with the progression to hepatic fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Several mechanisms have been proposed to account for the development of steatosis and fatty liver during HCV infection. We observed that HCV infection increases expression of both SREBP-1c and FASN. Further investigation suggested that the expression of SREBP-1c and FASN is controlled by the transcription factor FoxO1 during HCV infection. In addition, HCV infection significantly decreased both MCAD and SCAD expression, which is controlled by FoxA2. HCV infection also increased lipid droplet accumulation, increased perilipin-2 expression, and decreased HSL activity. Thus, knockdown of FoxO1 (decreased lipogenesis) and overexpression of FoxA2 (increased β-oxidation) resulted in a significant disruption of the platform and, hence, a decrease in HCV genome replication. Thus, targeting of FoxO1 and FoxA2 might be useful in developing a therapeutic approach against HCV infection

Analytic Estimates of the QCD Corrections to Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

We study the QCD corrections to neutrino deep-inelastic scattering on a nucleus, and analytically estimate their size. For an isoscalar target, we show that the dominant QCD corrections to the ratio of the neutral- to charged-current events are suppressed by sin^4 theta_W, where theta_W is the weak mixing angle. We then discuss the implications for the NuTeV determination of sin^2 theta_W.Comment: 16 pages, Late

Third-generation leptoquark decays and collider searches

Collider searches for first-, second-, and third-generation scalar (S) or vector (V) leptoquarks (LQs) focus on the quark-lepton decay modes S,V -> q l. For SU(2)-doublet and -triplet leptoquarks with a sufficiently large splitting between the components, decays involving real W-boson emission (such as S_2^{(+5/3)} -> S_2^{(+2/3)} W^{+} and others) become possible and can change the patterns of leptoquark decays. For third-generation leptoquarks, where these mass splittings might be large, such modes could dominate certain leptoquark decays as they are (if kinematically allowed) guaranteed to be of order g^2 where g is the electroweak coupling. We calculate the decay rates for all such processes involving SU(2)-doublet and triplet, scalar and vector leptoquarks. Standard limits on mass splittings from precision electroweak measurements imply that only such decays involving SU(2)-doublet scalar LQs are likely kinematically possible.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, 2 separate postscript figure

On the Baryon, Lepton-Flavour and Right-Handed Electron Asymmetries of the Universe

Non-perturbative electroweak effects, in thermal equilibrium in the early universe, have the potential to erase the baryon asymmetry of the universe, unless it is encoded in a B-L asymmetry, or in some "accidentally" conserved quantity. We first consider the possibility that the BAU may be regenerated from lepton flavour asymmetries even when initially $B-L = 0$. We show that provided some, but {\it not} all the lepton flavours are violated by ${\Delta}L{\neq}0$ interactions in equilibrium, the BAU may be regenerated without lepton mass effects. We next examine the possibility of encoding the baryon asymmetry in a primordial asymmetry for the right-handed electron, which due to its weak Yukawa interaction only comes into chemical equilibrium as the sphalerons are falling out of equilibrium. This would also raise the possibility of preserving an initial baryon asymmetry when $B-L = 0$.Comment: LATEX File with 12 pages, one figure (not included); published in Phys. Lett B297 (1992) p11

On Preserving a B+L Asymmetry Produced in the Early Universe

One of the most efficient mechanisms for producing the baryon asymmetry of the Universe is the decay of scalar condensates in a SUSY GUT as was first suggested by Affleck and Dine. We show that given a large enough asymmetry, the baryon number will be preserved down to low temperatures even if B - L = 0, because the baryon number carrying scalars form bose condensates that give the W a mass. We derive the conditions on the condensate needed to suppress electroweak sphaleron interactions which would otherwise drive the baryon asymmetry to zero when B - L = 0.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, UMN-TH-1240, CfPA-TH-94-13, LBL-3527

On the side of the angels: community involvement in the governance of neighbourhood renewal.

This article draws upon the authors’ experiences of community-led regeneration developed while members of the National Evaluation Team for the NDC Programme. The article continues the focus on urban regeneration adopted in a range of outputs from two of the authors over the last decade. In assessing how the term community has been defined by policy-makers and the challenges involved in empowering communities, the output was aimed at both academic and user communities. For its direct relevance to communities involved in regeneration, the article was awarded the 2006 Sam Aaronovitch Prize, awarded annually by the journal Local Economy

Minimal Flavour Violation for Leptoquarks

Scalar leptoquarks, with baryon and lepton number conserving interactions, could have TeV scale masses, and be produced at colliders or contribute to a wide variety of rare decays. In pursuit of some insight as to the most sensitive search channels, We assume that the leptoquark-lepton-quark coupling can be constructed from the known mass matrices. We estimate the rates for selected rare processes in three cases: leptoquarks carrying lepton and quark flavour, leptoquarks with quark flavour only, and unflavoured leptoquarks. We find that leptoquark decay to top quarks is an interesting search channel.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, minor changes and references adde