A Whitehall perspective on decentralisation in England’s emerging territories

Decentralisation is a key thread running through current UK policy making. The Coalition Government has abolished New Labour’s regional legacy in favour of a new set of strategies around growth and development that has tapped into the localist agenda. Drawing on a series of recent interviews conducted with civil servants, this article explores government initiatives aimed at enhancing local autonomy in England and provides new empirical insights into decentralisation from a Whitehall perspective. It examines departmental aspirations for decentralised structures and Whitehall perceptions of the capacity of local arrangements to successfully manage territorial development in an era of austerity. The article concludes that, in the fields of economic development, planning and transport, there are signs of enhanced local policy and fiscal autonomy. However, there are different levels of enthusiasm for decentralisation across and within Whitehall departments that continue to undermine a more cohesive approach. </jats:p

Exact ϕ1,3\phi_{1,3} boundary flows in the tricritical Ising model

We consider the tricritical Ising model on a strip or cylinder under the integrable perturbation by the thermal $\phi_{1,3}$ boundary field. This perturbation induces five distinct renormalization group (RG) flows between Cardy type boundary conditions labelled by the Kac labels $(r,s)$. We study these boundary RG flows in detail for all excitations. Exact Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz (TBA) equations are derived using the lattice approach by considering the continuum scaling limit of the $A_4$ lattice model with integrable boundary conditions. Fixing the bulk weights to their critical values, the integrable boundary weights admit a thermodynamic boundary field $\xi$ which induces the flow and, in the continuum scaling limit, plays the role of the perturbing boundary field $\phi_{1,3}$. The excitations are completely classified, in terms of string content, by $(m,n)$ systems and quantum numbers but the string content changes by either two or three well-defined mechanisms along the flow. We identify these mechanisms and obtain the induced maps between the relevant finitized Virasoro characters. We also solve the TBA equations numerically to determine the boundary flows for the leading excitations.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures, Latex; v2: some typos corrected and few comments adde

Building regional governance in England:The view from Whitehall

Constitutional arrangements in parts of the UK have been transformed by political devolution. In England, however, reliance has been placed on strengthening the regional tier through administrative clecentralisation. Drawing on the views of Whitehall civil servants, this article explores how central-regional relations are being recalibrated and how government is building a regional perspective into its activities. We conclude that, in the absence of regional govern ment,Whitehall is pursuing a cautious approach to regional working and greater attention needs to be given to incorporating regional priorities in national spending programmes and developing a more coherent approach to regional strategy making

Twenty-five years of Health &amp; Place: citation classics, internationalism and interdisciplinarity

To mark 25 years of Health &amp; Place Health &amp; Place, we identify and appraise some key contributions to the journal over this period. We use citation data to identify ‘classics’ from the journal's back catalogue. We also examine trends in the international reach and disciplinary homes of our authors. We show that there has been a near 7-fold increase in the number of published papers between the early and most recent years of the journal and that the journal's citation levels are amongst the top 2% of social science journals. Amongst the most cited papers, some clear themes are evident such as physical activity, diet/food, obesity and topics relating to greenspace. The profile of the journal's authors is becoming more internationally diverse, represents a broader range of disciplines, and increasingly demonstrating cross/interdisciplinary ways of working. Although Anglophone countries have led the way, there is an increasing number of contributions from elsewhere including emerging economies such as China. We conclude with some comments on likely future directions for the journal including enduring concerns such as greenspace, obesity, diet and unhealthy commodities (alcohol, tobacco, ultra-processed food) as well as more recent directions including planetary health, longitudinal and lifecourse analyses, and the opportunities (and challenges) of big data and machine learning. Whatever the thematic concerns of the papers over next 25 years, we will continue to welcome outstanding research that is concerned with the importance place makes to health

Lattice Approach to Excited TBA Boundary Flows: Tricritical Ising Model

We show how a lattice approach can be used to derive Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz (TBA) equations describing all excitations for boundary flows. The method is illustrated for a prototypical flow of the tricritical Ising model by considering the continuum scaling limit of the A4 lattice model with integrable boundaries. Fixing the bulk weights to their critical values, the integrable boundary weights admit two boundary fields $\xi$ and $\eta$ which play the role of the perturbing boundary fields $\phi_{1,3}$ and $\phi_{1,2}$ inducing the renormalization group flow between boundary fixed points. The excitations are completely classified in terms of (m,n) systems and quantum numbers but the string content changes by certain mechanisms along the flow. For our prototypical example, we identify these mechanisms and the induced map between the relevant finitized Virasoro characters. We also solve the boundary TBA equations numerically to determine the flows for the leading excitations.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX; v2: some useful notations and one reference added; to appear in PL

A Renormalisation group for TCSA

We discuss the errors introduced by level truncation in the study of boundary renormalisation group flows by the Truncated Conformal Space Approach. We show that the TCSA results can have the qualitative form of a sequence of RG flows between different conformal boundary conditions. In the case of a perturbation by the field phi(13), we propose a renormalisation group equation for the coupling constant which predicts a fixed point at a finite value of the TCSA coupling constant and we compare the predictions with data obtained using TBA equations.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, talk presented by G Watts at the workshop "Integrable Models and Applications: from Strings to Condensed Matter", Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 12-16 September 200

Emerging Patterns of Governance in the English Regions: The Role of Regional Assemblies

The case for elected English regional government outside London has lost momentum, but the machinery of regional governance continues to expand. This article explores the significance of this process through an examination of the evolution of Regional Assemblies. Each has progressed differently, but all Assemblies lack political legitimacy and resources and have struggled to mobilize influence in Whitehall and their regions. Although contributing to greater coherence in regional governance, their future is uncertain and there is a need to systematically assess what tasks Assemblies should perform, and why, and the resources required for their delivery

Disease activity and cognition in rheumatoid arthritis : an open label pilot study

Acknowledgements This work was supported in part by NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre. Funding for this study was provided by Abbott Laboratories. Abbott Laboratories were not involved in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; or in the writing of the report.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Thermal modelling comparing high temperature fixed point measurements by contact and non-contact thermometry

This paper reports thermal modelling that aims to establish if the measurement method - either by a radiation thermometer or by a thermocouple - significantly influences the measured temperature of the high temperature fixed points Co-C, Pd-C and Ru-C. It is clear that both measurement techniques have specific physical characteristics which may affect the temperature measured during the melting plateau. With the radiation thermometer, the radiation heat transfer is directly influenced by the environment because the back-wall is effectively viewing the cold outside environment. In the case of a thermocouple direct viewing of the outside world is blocked so radiation transport is significantly reduced; however, in the case of the thermocouple there is a different component of heat transfer, namely conduction from the thermowell walls in contact with the thermocouple along the thermocouple stem itself