Creating the National Security State:A History of the Law That Transformed America

Douglas Stuart holds the J. William Stuart and Helen D. Stuart Chair in In- ternational Studies, Business and Management at Dickinson College and is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army War College. He provides an insightful history of the struggle to reform com- pletely the U.S. national security estab- lishment from 1937 to 1960, an effort that resulted in the creation of the De- partment of Defense, the National Se- curity Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and three separate armed service departments un- der a secretary of defense

Determining the sources of nutrient flux to water in headwater catchments:Examining the speciation balance to inform the targeting of mitigation measures

Diffuse water pollution from agriculture (DWPA) is a major environmental concern, with significant adverse impacts on both human and ecosystem health. However,without an appropriate understanding of the multiple factors impacting on water, mitigation measures cannot be targeted. Therefore, this paper addresses this gap in understanding, reporting the hydrochemicalmonitoring evidence collected from the UK Government's Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) programme including contrasting chalk and clay/mudstone catchments. We use data collected at daily and sub-daily frequency overmultiple sites to address: (1) How does the behaviour of the full range of nitrogen (N) species and phosphorus (P) fractions vary? (2) How do N species and P fractions vary inter- and intra-annually? (3)What do these data indicate about the primary pollution sources? And (4) which diffuse pollution mitigation measures are appropriate in our study landscapes? Key differences in the rates of flux of nutrients were identified, dependent on catchment characteristics. Full N speciation and P fractionation, together with dissolved organic carbon (DOC) enabled identification of the most likely contributing sources in each catchment. Nitrate (NO3-N) was the dominant N fraction in the chalk whereas organic and particulate N comprised the majority of the load in the clay/mudstone catchments. Despite current legislation, orthophosphate (PO4-P)was not found to be the dominant form of P in any of the catchments monitored. The chalk sub-catchments had the largest proportion of inorganic/dissolved organic P (DOP), accompanied by episodic delivery of particulate P (PP). Contrastingly, the clay/mudstone sub-catchments loads were dominated by PP and DOP. Thus, our results show that by monitoring both the inorganic and organic fractions a more complete picture of catchment nutrient fluxes can be determined, and sources of pollution pin-pointed. Ultimately, policy and management to bring nutrient impacts under control will only be successful if a multistressor approach is adopted

Laboratories, laws, and the career of a commodity

Unlike most foods, milk is produced fresh at least twice every day, thus recreating, over 700 times a year, a commodity ‘designed’ by the combination of nature, commerce, and law. The paper is a study of the ontogenesis of this commodity in Britain since 1800, stressing the emergence of two new objectivities: dairy science and the law on adulteration. In the words of Christopher Hamlin, what mattered was the “manufacture of certainty, however flimsy that certainty might later be shown to be.'' This was achieved by the collection of samples, the generation of facts by the deployment of the laboratory technologies of physics and chemistry, and a semimonopoly over the truth-power of dairy science that was gradually built up by the large commercial companies. A foundation of state-sponsored regulation provided an official legitimation of compositional standards that suited the interests of capital but ignored ‘natural’ variations in quality and often pilloried innocent producers. The public eventually became accustomed to the regulated quality of the milk in its ‘pinta’ and assumed it to be natural. Even the standardization of composition since 1993 has caused very little disquiet among the consuming public, although milk is now a fully constructed commodity like any other dairy product. Mechanical modernity has at last triumphed over a century of ‘milk as it came from the cow’

Moving interdisciplinary science forward: integrating participatory modelling with mathematical modelling of zoonotic disease in Africa

This review outlines the benefits of using multiple approaches to improve model design and facilitate multidisciplinary research into infectious diseases, as well as showing and proposing practical examples of effective integration. It looks particularly at the benefits of using participatory research in conjunction with traditional modelling methods to potentially improve disease research, control and management. Integrated approaches can lead to more realistic mathematical models which in turn can assist with making policy decisions that reduce disease and benefit local people. The emergence, risk, spread and control of diseases are affected by many complex bio-physical, environmental and socio-economic factors. These include climate and environmental change, land-use variation, changes in population and people’s behaviour. The evidence base for this scoping review comes from the work of a consortium, with the aim of integrating modelling approaches traditionally used in epidemiological, ecological and development research. A total of five examples of the impacts of participatory research on the choice of model structure are presented. Example 1 focused on using participatory research as a tool to structure a model. Example 2 looks at identifying the most relevant parameters of the system. Example 3 concentrates on identifying the most relevant regime of the system (e.g., temporal stability or otherwise), Example 4 examines the feedbacks from mathematical models to guide participatory research and Example 5 goes beyond the so-far described two-way interplay between participatory and mathematical approaches to look at the integration of multiple methods and frameworks. This scoping review describes examples of best practice in the use of participatory methods, illustrating their potential to overcome disciplinary hurdles and promote multidisciplinary collaboration, with the aim of making models and their predictions more useful for decision-making and policy formulation

A Transcriptional “Scream” Early Response of E. coli Prey to Predatory Invasion by Bdellovibrio

We have transcriptionally profiled the genes differentially expressed in E. coli prey cells when predatorily attacked by Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus just prior to prey cell killing. This is a brief, approximately 20–25 min period when the prey cell is still alive but contains a Bdellovibrio cell in its periplasm or attached to and penetrating its outer membrane. Total RNA was harvested and labelled 15 min after initiating a semi-synchronous infection with an excess of Bdellovibrio preying upon E. coli and hybridised to a macroarray spotted with all predicted ORFs of E. coli. SAM analysis and t-tests were performed on the resulting data and 126 E. coli genes were found to be significantly differentially regulated by the prey upon attack by Bdellovibrio. The results were confirmed by QRT-PCR. Amongst the prey genes upregulated were a variety of general stress response genes, potentially “selfish” genes within or near prophages and transposable elements, and genes responding to damage in the periplasm and osmotic stress. Essentially, the presence of the invading Bdellovibrio and the resulting damage to the prey cell elicited a small “transcriptional scream”, but seemingly no specific defensive mechanism with which to counter the Bdellovibrio attack. This supports other studies which do not find Bdellovibrio resistance responses in prey, and bodes well for its use as a “living antibiotic”