Responding to the risk of reducing resources: development of a framework for future change programmes in English environmental health services

Environmental Health Services in the UK have been subject to significant resource reduction from 2010 to 2018. It is suggested that services risk becoming unsustainable unless efficient and effective ways of working are employed. This research explored the experience of practitioners who are developing and delivering evolving Environmental Health Services in English local authorities in the context of deep cutting budget reductions. A range of ‘non-traditional’ service delivery models has been examined including outsourcing, shared services, regional delivery models and mutualisation arrangements. The models were at various stages of development from planning through to full transformation. Interviews were carried out with the participants involved in the change process to capture their experience of change and the impact on service delivery. Fieldwork was undertaken between 2014 and 2016. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts identified six central themes of the experience of change: ‘Managing changes effectively’; ‘Understanding the reasons for change’; ‘Understanding the nature of Environmental Health’; ‘Meaningful consultation’; ‘Viability of the proposal’; And ‘Planning and timeliness’. Further analysis of the data developed seven overarching themes: ‘Ethos of public services’, ‘Getting it right’, ‘Emerging service demands’, ‘Resilience’, ‘Trust’, ‘Skills development’ and ‘Risk’. A framework for future change programmes in Environmental Health Services has been developed which takes into account the lessons learnt by organisations that have previously undergone significant change in their response to the risk of a reducing resource. Environmental Health Services undergoing transformation will benefit from using this framework to examine their own organisation when they are establishing the need for change, making decisions, planning and transition. Use of this framework can mitigate against risks of unsustainable or undeliverable Environmental Health Services

Characterising a novel heavy metal-sensing multikinase network in the environmental organism and opportunistic pathogen, Burkholderia cenocepacia

Two-component systems (TCSs) are a primary means of responding to environmental cues across the bacterial domain, and usually act independently of one another, forming discrete, isolated units. Multikinase networks (MKNs) are systems of multiple TCSs which can interact to integrate numerous signals into a decided cellular output, conferring an advantage to the cell. This work focuses on a novel MKN from the opportunistic pathogen, Burkholderia cenocepacia. Through purification of each putative TCS, their ability to undergo non-cognate phosphorylation with one another was assessed in vitro through the phosphotransfer assay. This revealed that three sensor kinases, BCAM0442, BCAM0715 and BCAS0585 are able to phosphorylate one another’s response regulators. This non-cognate phosphotransfer was also possible, albeit to a lesser extent, in the presence of the cognate response regulator protein. Deletion mutants of each TCS and investigation of TCS promoter induction revealed that BCAM0442/3 is implicated in copper resistance, and BCAM0714/5 is implicated in cadmium and zinc resistance. Exposure of B. cenocepacia to copper or zinc enhances resistance to imipenem, a phenomenon in which this MKN is implicated. A MKN deletion mutant is heavily attenuated in virulence in Galleria mellonella, linking the metal response with virulence in B. cenocepacia. Additionally, exploration of the copper response by RNA-seq analysis revealed substantial upregulation of the genes surrounding BCAM0442/3. A CopABCDE-like system was strongly upregulated in a BCAM0442/3-dependent manner, suggesting that BCAM0442/3 directly regulates this system. Previous work identified that BCAM0714/5 regulates a downstream gene region, BCAM0716-21, deletion of which confers susceptibility to zinc in B. cenocepacia. Complementation with the BCAM0716/17 gene region restored resistance to zinc, implicating these genes in the zinc response of B. cenocepacia. Given the environmental impact of heavy metal pollution and the use of metals as both an antibacterial strategy by the immune system and in medical devices, understanding the mechanisms of bacterial metal resistance is vital. This work has identified a novel metal-sensing MKN in B. cenocepacia, linking the cadmium, zinc and copper responses with virulence and carbapenem resistance

Luther and Zwingli on the Righteousness of God

It would be going too far to say that Zwingli was a Nestorian, but his christology definitely had weaknesses, similar to those of Scholastic theology. My thesis, which I hope to demonstrate in this paper, is that Zwingli did not come to Luther\u27s evangelical understanding of the righteousness of God because he did not recognize the importance of the proper distinction between the law and the gospel. The result of this was that Christ remained a lawgiver for him, as Christ was for Luther before his rediscovery of the gospel. I shall base my research on Luther\u27s two sermons, Sermo de duplici iustitia (1519) and Epistel auff den Palmtag (1525), and on Zwingli\u27s Von gotlicher und menschlichen grechtigheiten (1523) with some supplementary passages from Auslegung des 22. Artikels in Auslegung und Grunde der Schlussreden 14.Juli 1523. 1

The Court of Federigo da Montefeltro Duke of Urbino

The character of this thesis has been controlled to a great extent by the material which has been available to me. My original intention had been to recreate a picture of the life in court during Federigo da Montefeltro\u27s rule, to describe the fabric of the building, its decorations and furnishings and the people who frequent it. I found, however, after I had begun my research that much of the material which I needed was either non-existent or unavailable. In the following chapters I have tried to bring out the important role which the court of Urbino played in the artistic life of Italy during Federigo\u27s rule and the succeeding period. To devote one chapter out of five to the architect of the palace may seem to be giving undo emphasis to a minor matter. However, in the course of my work I found that little had been written about Luciano Laurana and that his importance in the formation of the style of High Renaissance architecture has been scarcely recognized

Cultivating Reform: Richard Nixon\u27s Illicit Substance Control Legacy, Medical Marijuana Social Movement Organizations, And Venue Shopping

Over the course of the last two decades, organizations representing the medical marijuana social movement have campaigned for, proposed state level legislation, and supported numerous legal arguments that challenge and attempt to reform U.S. federal illicit substance policies. This set of social regulatory policies, commonly known as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 (CSA), were drafted, promoted, and implemented by the Nixon Administration then subsequently entrenched by multiple presidents with acquiescent congresses adopting supplemental supply-side resource allocating legislation. My dissertation research uncoils the convoluted history and institutional dynamics of path dependent U.S. illegal drug control policies to answer the question of how social movement organizations (SMOs) challenge and reform executively entrenched policies. First, I examine the Nixon Administration\u27s decision-making process via archival materials in order to understand why and how the CSA was framed, introduced, and ratified. Second, two presidential illicit substance control case studies (Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) are presented to demonstrate how U.S. illicit substance control is executively entrenched. Third, periodical challenges prior to the first state-level medical marijuana law are presented as antecedent and instructional to contemporary SMO institutional mobilization. Last, through interviews, media portrayals, and institutional rulings I demonstrate how medical marijuana SMOs have reframed the drug\u27s definition then shopped institutional venues for the purpose of reforming existing policies

Mid-J CO observations of Perseus B1-East 5: evidence for turbulent dissipation via low-velocity shocks

Giant molecular clouds contain supersonic turbulence and magnetohydrodynamic simulations predict that this turbulence should decay rapidly. Such turbulent dissipation has the potential to create a warm (T ~100 K) gas component within a molecular cloud. We present observations of the CO J = 5-4 and 6-5 transitions, taken with the Herschel Space Observatory, towards the Perseus B1-East 5 region. We combine these new observations with archival measurements of lower rotational transitions and fit photodissociation region models to the data. We show that Perseus B1-E5 has an anomalously large CO J = 6-5 integrated intensity, consistent with a warm gas component existing within the region. This excess emission is consistent with predictions for shock heating due to the dissipation of turbulence in low velocity shocks with the shocks having a volume filling factor of 0.15 per cent. We find that B1-E has a turbulent energy dissipation rate of 3.5 x 10$^{32}$ erg / s and a dissipation time-scale that is only a factor of 3 larger than the flow crossing time-scale.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables, accepted by MNRAS, fixed errors described in erratu

Responding to the risk of reducing resources: development of a framework for future change programmes in environmental health services

Environmental Health services in the UK have been subject to significant resource reduction over the last 5 years. It is suggested that services risk becoming unsustainable unless efficient and effective ways of working are employed. With this in mind this paper presents the findings of research into the experience of practitioners who are developing and delivering evolving Environmental Health services in English local authorities in the context of deep cutting budget reductions. The research explores the experience of change and identifies lessons learnt in the development and execution of new models of Environmental Health service delivery to mitigate against risks of unsustainable or undeliverable services. Interviews were carried out with the participants to capture their experience of change and the impact on service delivery. A range of service delivery models have been examined including outsourcing, shared services, regional delivery models and discussion of mutual arrangements and at various stages of development from planning through to full transformation. Field work was undertaken between 2014 and 2016. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts has identified six emergent themes of the experience of change: managing changes effectively; understanding the reasons for change; understanding the nature of Environmental Health; meaningful consultation; viability of the proposal; planning and timeliness. Environmental Health services undergoing transformation may benefit from taking into account the lessons learnt by organisations that have previously undergone significant change in their response to the risk of a reducing resource. Keywords: Environmental Health; austerity; regulation; emerging risk; outsourcing; managing change

Review: Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose + Croix in Paris, 1892–1897, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 30 June – 4 October 2017, and Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 28 October – 7 January 2018

This exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City is the first by a major museum (or any museum) to present those works displayed in the several salons staged by Joséphin Péladan (1858–1918), the decadent symbolist eccentric who styled himself Sâr Merodack, leader of L’Ordre de RoseXCroix du Temple et du Graal, the secret fraternal society Péladan established after a falling out with the occult poet Stanislas de Guaïta, head of a Rosicrucian sect. It is probably best not to ask how the esoteric system of the RXC differs from ‘orthodox’ Rosicrucianism. Historically, the Rosicrucian Brotherhood dates from 1614, when Fama Fraternitatis, dess Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes [The Declaration of the Worthy Order of the Rosy Cross] was published at Kassel, Germany. This book claimed that one Christian Rosenkreuz, whose life spanned the fin-de-siècle period between the 14th and 15th centuries, founded the secret order after a journey to the East. Two more books about the secret adventures of Herr Rosenkreuz appeared, the last and weirdest being Die Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz [The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz] (1616)