A Double-Barrelled Assault: How Technology and Judicial Interpretations Threaten Public Access to Law Enforcement Records

Recently, an explosion of media coverage has revealed gross misconduct on the part of many police officers in the United States. From Rodney King to Mark Furman, the events have raised grave questions about whether existing checks against police misconduct are effective. Yet, at this crucial period, technological advances and judicial interpretations undermine the ability of the public to access police records. The Author argues that most Freedom of Information (FOI) statutes provide inadequate access to police records in light of technological advances and narrow judicial interpretations of FOI statutes

Leadership in the British civil service: an interpretation

This article is essentially a polemic. The argument is that when politicians and officials now talk of ‘leadership’ in the British civil service they do not use that word in the way in which it was previously used. In the past leading civil servants, acting in partnership with ministers and within constitutional constraints, exercised leadership in the sense of setting example, inspiring confidence and encouraging loyalty. The loosening of traditional constitutional patterns, the marginalization of senior officials in the policy process and the emergence of business methods as the preferred model for public ­administration have led to a political and administrative environment in which leadership in the British civil service is now about encouraging patterns of behaviour which fit in with these changes. Leadership skills are now about ‘delivery’; they are not about motivation. It is time for politicians, officials and scholars to be open about this

Why Is It So Challenging to Measure Residual Stresses ?

BACKGROUND: Residual stresses have a “hidden” character because they exist in a material without the presence of any external loads. They cannot easily be added or subtracted in a quantified manner, as is done when measuring applied stresses, and so are much more challenging to measure. OBJECTIVE: The objective here is to identify and describe the various features that make residual stress measurement methods challenging and to consider the ways that these challenges can be addressed in practice. METHODS: Various of the most common residual stress measurements methods are considered and the challenges associated with them are identified and classified. RESULTS: Five major challenges for residual stress measurements, and the approaches used for their resolution, are identified. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the various challenges that need to be overcome, residual stress measurements can be successfully undertaken in practice. The most significant feature for success is a highly skilled and knowledge practitioner

Devising a Resilience Rating System For Charities & The Non-Profit Sector

One of the sectoral issues that COVID has shone a light on is that whilst social investors, grant funders and sector support organisations acquire detailed data about the activities they have commissioned individually, they do not have access to a similar level of data about the wider sectors in which they are operating. �This report was written in the first 4 weeks of lockdown in 2020 and developed a framework for assessing financial resilience of Third Sector Organisations

The potential impact of reforms to the essential parameters of the council tax

Council Tax was introduced in Britain in 1993 and represents a unique international property tax. There is a growing belief that it is time to reform the number and structure of council tax bands but such views have a minimal empirical base. This paper sets out to assess the impact on personal and local government finances, and extends the analysis to the role of the tax multipliers linked to each band. The research is based on the experience of a representative sample of local authorities in Scotland. A statistical revaluation for 2000 is estimated for the existing eight band system, and from this base a ten band system is calculated. Financial implications are then simulated for each local authority taking account of central resource equalisation mechanisms. The results indicate that increases in bands will have little impact on the burden of the council tax compared with regular revaluations. Changing the tax multiplier range has the greatest impact on local authority finances and council tax payments

Senescent cancer-associated fibroblasts secrete active MMP-2 that promotes keratinocyte dis-cohesion and invasion

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have demonstrated that senescent cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) derived from genetically unstable oral squamous cell carcinomas (GU-OSCC), unlike non-senescent CAFs from genetically stable carcinomas (GS-OSCC), promoted keratinocyte invasion in vitro in a paracrine manner. The mechanism by which this occurs is unclear. METHODS: Previous work to characterise the senescent-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) has used antibody arrays, technology that is limited by the availability of suitable antibodies. To extend this work in an unbiased manner, we used 2D gel electrophoresis and mass spectroscopy for protein identification. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) were investigated by gelatin zymography and western blotting. Neutralising antibodies were used to block key molecules in the functional assays of keratinocyte adhesion and invasion. RESULTS: Among a variety of proteins that were differentially expressed between CAFs from GU-OSCC and GS-OSCC, MMP-2 was a major constituent of senescent CAF-CM derived from GU-OSCC. The presence of active MMP-2 was confirmed by gelatine zymography. MMP-2 derived from senescent CAF-CM induced keratinocyte dis-cohesion and epithelial invasion into collagen gels in a TGF-β-dependent manner. CONCLUSIONS: Senescent CAFs from GU-OSCC promote a more aggressive oral cancer phenotype by production of active MMP-2, disruption of epithelial adhesion and induction of keratinocyte invasion