The Evolution of Party Policy and Cleavage Voting under Power-Sharing in Northern Ireland

This article argues that post-conflict consociational arrangements in ethnically divided societies incentivize moderation by political parties, but not policy differentiation outside the main conflict. This results in little policy-driven voting. Analysing party manifestos and voter survey data, we examine the evolution of party policy and cleavage voting under power-sharing in Northern Ireland 1998–2016. We find a reduction in ethno-national policy differences between parties and that ethno-nationalism has become less important in predicting vote choice for Protestants, but not Catholics. We also find little party differentiation in other policy areas and show that vote choices are largely independent of people's policy stances on economic or social issues. Our findings are thus largely consistent with a ‘top-down’ interpretation of political dynamics

Does receiving advice from Voter Advice Applications (VAAs) affect public opinion in deeply divided societies? Evidence from a field experiment in Northern Ireland

Despite the global growth in the use of Voter Advice Applications (VAAs), which advise users on how similar their own policy views are to the policy positions of the political parties, there have been few field experiments that isolate the causal effects of VAA use on party support. Nor has there been much investigation of how VAAs may help to ameliorate ethnically based voting divisions by refocusing voter attention on other issues. This article draws on evidence from a field experiment in the deeply divided context of Northern Ireland. We find that at the individual level party preferences are somewhat more closely related to voter ideology after the provision of advice. Yet, at the aggregate level, we find no evidence that advice leads to weaker ethno-national structuring of party support. These results suggest that while receiving advice from VAAs has some impact on users’ party preferences, there is no observable overall impact on support levels for the ethno-national blocs in Northern Ireland

Mechanisms for covalent immobilization of horseradish peroxi-dase on ion beam treated polyethylene

The mechanism that provides the observed strong binding of biomolecules to polymer sur-faces modified by ion beams is investigated. The surface of polyethylene (PE) was modified by plasma immersion ion implantation with nitrogen ions. Structure changes including car-bonization and oxidation were observed in the modified surface layer of PE by Raman spec-troscopy, FTIR ATR spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, surface energy measurement and XPS spectroscopy. An observed high surface energy of the modified polyethylene was attributed to the presence of free radicals on the surface. The surface energy decay with stor-age time after PIII treatment was explained by a decay of the free radical concentration while the concentration of oxygen-containing groups increased with storage time. Horseradish per-oxidase was covalently attached onto the modified PE surface. The enzymatic activity of co-valently attached protein remained high. A mechanism based on the covalent attachment by the reaction of protein with free radicals in the modified surface is proposed. Appropriate blocking agents can block this reaction. All aminoacid residues can take part in the covalent attachment process, providing a universal mechanism of attachment for all proteins. The long-term activity of the modified layer to attach protein (at least 2 years) is explained by stabilisa-tion of unpaired electrons in sp2 carbon structures. The native conformation of attached pro-tein is retained due to hydrophilic interactions in the interface region. A high concentration of free radicals on the surface can give multiple covalent bonds to the protein molecule and de-stroy the native conformation and with it the catalytic activity. The universal mechanism of protein attachment to free radicals could be extended to various methods of radiation damage of polymers

'The stars seem aligned': a qualitative study to understand the effects of context on scale-up of maternal and newborn health innovations in Ethiopia, India and Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Donors commonly fund innovative interventions to improve health in the hope that governments of low and middle-income countries will scale-up those that are shown to be effective. Yet innovations can be slow to be adopted by country governments and implemented at scale. Our study explores this problem by identifying key contextual factors influencing scale-up of maternal and newborn health innovations in three low-income settings: Ethiopia, the six states of northeast Nigeria and Uttar Pradesh state in India. METHODS: We conducted 150 semi-structured interviews in 2012/13 with stakeholders from government, development partner agencies, externally funded implementers including civil society organisations, academic institutions and professional associations to understand scale-up of innovations to improve the health of mothers and newborns these study settings. We analysed interview data with the aid of a common analytic framework to enable cross-country comparison, with Nvivo to code themes. RESULTS: We found that multiple contextual factors enabled and undermined attempts to catalyse scale-up of donor-funded maternal and newborn health innovations. Factors influencing government decisions to accept innovations at scale included: how health policy decisions are made; prioritising and funding maternal and newborn health; and development partner harmonisation. Factors influencing the implementation of innovations at scale included: health systems capacity in the three settings; and security in northeast Nigeria. Contextual factors influencing beneficiary communities' uptake of innovations at scale included: sociocultural contexts; and access to healthcare. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that context is critical: externally funded implementers need to assess and adapt for contexts if they are to successfully position an innovation for scale-up

Emerging professional skills: Insights and methods

In this workshop run by the Engineering skills SIG, attendees were given the opportunity to learn about emerging professional competencies, and strategies to overcome teaching barriers.The workshop format was “world cafe” with several tables for small groups to informally discuss these strategies within a time limit. Each table focussed on an emerging skill and/or scenario and participants each visited several tables. The session was informed by the engineering skills survey taken by SEFI 2021 conference attendees. It gave us views on new competencies, barriers to teaching them, and illustrations of good practice. Obstacles to teaching them include motivation, legitimacy, overloaded curriculums, student resistance, resource constraints, and pedagogical understandings.Ideally skills should be learned by students in contexts where they’re used. While many technical competencies are primarily developed in engineering practice, professional/soft abilities are often not. As a result, there ought to be some opportunity for the student to transfer, adapt and (re)learn them in an engineering degree. This report summarises the conference workshop outputs with sections for each table. Each section acknowledges the hosts/authors, a summary of the discussion, and any materials presented. Readers may find this paper useful when facilitating related discussions

Who, What, How? Tackling Skills Challenges: Future Relevance, Stakeholder Differences, And Teaching Hurdles

The Engineering Skills Special Interest Group (SIG) ran a workshop on the current challenges in teaching engineering skills. This workshop employed the “world café” participatory method where attendees visited three tables for a structured discussion with a member of the SIG. Each table posed a different question: On the What? table we discussed which skills are most relevant for future practitioners. The Who? table focussed on the differences in the way that various professional skills are conceptualised by main stakeholders. Finally, at the How? table we discussed the facilitators and barriers in designing and delivering skills education. The outcome of the workshop presented here is a mapping of skills in terms of present and future importance to attendees and their countries, and a classification of stakeholders in terms of macro, meso, micro level when considering their influence over skill conceptualisation and realisation

Identification of BPIFA1/SPLUNC1 as an epithelium-derived smooth muscle relaxing factor

Asthma is a chronic airway disease characterized by inflammation, mucus hypersecretion and abnormal airway smooth muscle (ASM) contraction. Bacterial permeability family member A1, BPIFA1, is a secreted innate defence protein. Here we show that BPIFA1 levels are reduced in sputum samples from asthmatic patients and that BPIFA1 is secreted basolaterally from healthy, but not asthmatic human bronchial epithelial cultures (HBECs), where it suppresses ASM contractility by binding to and inhibiting the Ca2+ influx channel Orai1. We have localized this effect to a specific, C-terminal α-helical region of BPIFA1. Furthermore, tracheas from Bpifa1−/− mice are hypercontractile, and this phenotype is reversed by the addition of recombinant BPIFA1. Our data suggest that BPIFA1 deficiency in asthmatic airways promotes Orai1 hyperactivity, increased ASM contraction and airway hyperresponsiveness. Strategies that target Orai1 or the BPIFA1 deficiency in asthma may lead to novel therapies to treat this disease