"Nourishing European Interest Groups: The Delors Commission and Labour"

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What was the programme theory of New Labour’s health system reforms?

To examine whether the Health System Reforms delivered the promise of being a coherent and mutually supporting reform programme; to identify the underlying programme theory of the reform programme; to reflect on whether lessons have been learned. \ud \ud Documentary analysis mapping the implicit and explicit programme theories about how the reforms intended to achieve its goals and outcomes. Semi-structured interviews with policy-makers to further understand the programme theory. \ud \ud The Health System Reforms assumed a ‘one size fits all’ approach to policy implementation with little recognition that some contexts can be more receptive than others. There was evidence of some policy evolution and rebalancing between the reform streams as policy-makers became aware of some perverse incentives and unforeseen consequences. Later elements aimed to restore balance to the system. \ud \ud The Health System Reforms do not appear to comprise a coherent and mutually supportive set of levers and incentives. They appear unbalanced with the centre of gravity favouring suppliers over commissioners. However, recent reform changes have sought to redress this imbalance to some extent, suggesting that lessons have been learned and policies have been adapted over time

Effective cross-sections from transport property measurements

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Using Final State Pseudorapidities to Improve s-channel Resonance Observables at the LHC

We study the use of final state particle pseudorapidity for measurements of s-channel resonances at the LHC. Distinguishing the spin of an s-channel resonance can, in principle, be accomplished using angular distributions in the centre-of-mass frame, possibly using a centre-edge asymmetry measurement, A_CE. In addition, forward-backward asymmetry measurements, A_FB, can be used to distinguish between models of extra neutral gauge bosons. In this note we show how these measurements can be improved by using simple methods based on the pseudorapidity of the final state particles and present the expected results for A_FB and A_CE for several representative models.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; typos fixed, improved visibility of figures for greyscale printin

Unravelling an Extra Neutral Gauge Boson at the LHC using Third Generation Fermions

We study the potential to use measurements of extra neutral gauge bosons (Z') properties in pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider to unravel the underlying physics. We focus on the usefulness of third generation final states (tau, b, t) in distinguishing between models with non-universal Z'-fermion couplings. We present an update of discovery limits of Z's including the 2010-2011 LHC run and include models with non-universal couplings. We show how ratios of sigma(pp -> Z' -> ttbar), sigma(pp -> Z' -> bbbar), and sigma(pp -> Z' -> tau^+tau^-) to sigma(pp -> Z' -> mu^+mu^-) can be used to distinguish between models and measure parameters of the models. Of specific interest are models with preferential couplings, such as models with generation dependent couplings. We also find that forward-backward asymmetry measurements with third generation fermions in the final state could provide important input to understanding the nature of the Z'. Understanding detector resolution and efficiencies will be crucial for extracting results

Early Integrators and the Passive Majority: An evaluation study of a large web-based bibliographic reference database

An evaluation is reported of user responses to zetoc, a service that provides access to the British Library electronic table of contents database and an email alerting service. Two questionnaire surveys and an interview programme gave data on over 800 users. The results show that about 17% are active users who are achieving a personal information management routine by integrating zetoc with other services (the early integrators). The other 83%, the `passive majority', make limited use of zetoc and do not achieve integration with other services. The interviews reveal that some of this group have a stable but restricted usage routine that limits information overload. The usage by others is less controlled and they make little use of the information they receive. The paper examines the impact of enhancements to the zetoc service to support integration and it discusses the barriers that prevent many users exploiting the potential of services available to them