From social contract to 'social contrick' : the depoliticisation of economic policy-making under Harold Wilson, 1974–75

The 1974-79 Labour Governments were elected on the basis of an agreement with the TUC promising a redistribution of income and wealth known as the Social Contract. However, the Government immediately began to marginalise these commitments in favour of preferences for incomes policy and public expenditure cuts, which has led the Social Contract to be described as the 'Social Contrick'. These changes were legitimised through a process of depoliticisation, and using an Open Marxist framework and evidence from the National Archives, the paper will show that the Treasury's exchange rate strategy and the need to secure external finance placed issues of confidence at the centre of political debate, allowing the Government to argue there was no alternative to the introduction of incomes policy and the reduction of public expenditure

The Contribution of Natural History Museums to Science Education

This is a report of a project titled ‘The Contribution of Natural History Museums to Science Education’, funded by the Wellcome Trust and ESRC with a Phase 1 grant from the Science Learning+ initiative. The project explored how Natural History Museums (NHMs) and schools can complement one another to maximise learning among school-age learners, and researched the long-term benefits to learning and engagement with science that NHMs can provide. During the course of our work, our team, which consisted of museum professionals and academics in the UK and the US, worked in the UK and the US with practitioners in NHMs and with school teachers and students. Our conclusions, as summarised in this Executive Summary, fall into two areas, one to do with the provision by museums of learning experiences for students, the other to do with how NHMs assess the effects of their provision. While our focus is on NHMs, a number of our conclusions apply more generally

Cytogerontology since 1881: A reappraisal of August Weismann and a review of modern progress

Cytogerontology, the science of cellular ageing, originated in 1881 with the prediction by August Weismann that the somatic cells of higher animals have limited division potential. Weismann's prediction was derived by considering the role of natural selection in regulating the duration of an organism's life. For various reasons, Weismann's ideas on ageing fell into neglect following his death in 1914, and cytogerontology has only reappeared as a major research area following the demonstration by Hayflick and Moorhead in the early 1960s that diploid human fibroblasts are restricted to a finite number of divisions in vitro. In this review we give a detailed account of Weismann's theory, and we reveal that his ideas were both more extensive in their scope and more pertinent to current research than is generally recognised. We also appraise the progress which has been made over the past hundred years in investigating the causes of ageing, with particular emphasis being given to (i) the evolution of ageing, and (ii) ageing at the cellular level. We critically assess the current state of knowledge in these areas and recommend a series of points as primary targets for future research

Structure activity relationships of αv integrin antagonists for pulmonary fibrosis by variation in aryl substituents

Antagonism of alphav beta6 is emerging as a potential treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis based on strong target validation. Starting from an alphav beta3 antagonist lead and through simple variation in the nature and position of aryl substituent, the discovery of compounds with improved alphav beta6 activity is described. The compounds also have physicochemical properties commensurate with oral bioavailability and are high quality starting points for a drug discovery programme. Compounds 33S and 43E1 are pan alphav antagonists having ca 100 nM potency against alphav beta3, alphav beta5, alphav beta6 and alphav beta8 in cell adhesion assays. Detailed structure activity relationships with these integrins are described which also reveal substituents providing partial selectivity (defined as at least a 0.7 log difference in pIC50 values between the integrins in question) for alphav beta3 and alphav beta5

La incuestionabilidad del riesgo

Con anterioridad a la década de 1980, la literatura especializada en análisis y gestión del riesgo estaba dominada por la llamada visión tecnocrática o dominante. Esta visión establecía que los desastres naturales eran sucesos físicos extremos, producidos por una naturaleza caprichosa, externos a lo social y que requerían soluciones tecnológicas y de gestión por parte de expertos. Este artículo se centra en desarrollar una nueva explicación para entender la persistencia hegemónica de la visión tecnocrática basada en el concepto de incuestionabilidad del riesgo. Esta propuesta conceptual hace referencia a la incapacidad y desidia de los expertos, científicos y tomadores de decisiones en general (claimmakers) de identificar y actuar sobre las causas profundas de la producción del riesgo ya que ello conllevaría a cuestionar los imperativos normativos, las necesidades de las elites y los estilos de vida del actual sistema socioeconómico globalizado.Before de 1980s, the natural hazard analysis and management specialized literature was dominated by the so called "dominant" or "technocratic" view. Such perspective had established that natural disasters are extreme physical events caused by a whimsical nature and that these events are external to society. These events required technological and management solutions developed by experts. The current article aims at addressing a new explanatory component in the hegemonic persistence of the technocratic view. Such assumption was based on the "unquestionability of the risk" concept. It is stated that the "unquestionability of the risk" is the overall incapacity and neglect of experts, scientists and decision makers to identify and act over the deep causes of risk production, since it would make them question the normative imperatives and the demands from the elite as well as the life style in nowadays globalized socio-economic system

Physiological Basis of Yield Variation in Short-duration Pigeonpea Grown in Different Environments of the Semi-Arid Tropics

Five short-duration pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) genotypes were grown at three plant populations in three locations during the 1986 and 1988 rainy seasons, to determine the physiological basis of observed variations in yield. Significant differences were found in seed yield (Y), crop growth rate (C), and the durations of vegetative (Dv) and reproductive (Dr) growth, and partitioning (P). These were attributable to genotypes and their interactions with environments (except for C). Variation in C, Dr, and P together explained 78 % of the observed variation in Y due to different genotypes and environments. Crop growth rate alone contributed about 71 % of the variation in Y, and reached an optimum value of around 6.5 kg ha−1°Cd−1. Crop growth rates increased with the duration of the vegetative period and with plant population. However, a negative relationship between C and P resulted in plant population having little effect on seed yield. The maximum-yielding genotype, ICPH 8 had the highest C and an intermediate

Celtic pilgrimage, past and present: from historical geography to contemporary embodied practices

Perigrinatio, the Latin term for pilgrimage was at the heart of the medieval Celtic church, but was this was understood and practised not only as a journey to a shrine, but more broadly as a spiritual journey, which could lead to an isolated hermitage or peripatetic evangelistic mission. In this paper, we outline the beliefs and practices of the broad assemblage known as the Celtic church, particularly the interleaving of pilgrimage, asceticism and landscape poetics, and how these have informed continued and renewed pilgrimage practices to sites of the early Celtic church by particular denominations, ecumenical groups and those interested in broader spiritualities. These sacred mobilities are explored through vignettes of embodied-emotionalspiritual practices situated in the landscapes and faith communities of Lough Derg,Ireland and the Isle of Man. They share geographical marginality, a focus on multiple Celtic saints and an enduring belief in the immanence of God, expressed through embodied spiritual practice in the landscape. However, they differ widely in matters of institutionalised structure, regulation, discursive scripting and gendered hierarchy, reflecting situated and denominational preferences for the ascetic and aesthetic spiritual legacies of the medieval Celtic church

Promised Land? Immigration, Religiosity, and Space in Southern California

This article looks at how immigrants and their supporters appropriate and use religious space and other public spaces for religious and socio-political purposes in Southern California. While the everyday living conditions of many immigrants, particularly the unauthorized Latino immigrants, force unto them an embodied disciplinarity that maintains spatialities of restricted citizenship, the public appropriations of space for and through religious practices allow for them -even if only momentarily -to express an embodied transgression. This practice in public space helps realize spaces of freedom and hope, however ephemerally. Potentially, these rehearsing exercises can help revert internalized disempowering subjectivities and create social empowerment. Negative stereotypes about immigrants held by the larger public can also be challenged through these spatial practices, as the public demonstrations make visible the invisible. We focus on “Posadas Without Borders” and “the New Sanctuary Movement,” considering both the role of progressive civic and religious institutions in supporting immigrants and the agency of the immigrants themselves. The theoretical analysis builds on concepts drawn from a conversation between geography and religious and theological studies. We use a triangulated methodological approach that includes observation and participant observation, content-analysis of multimedia, interviews, and intellectual advocacy for the immigrant movement. The cases discussed here show that progressive religious groups and coalitions can be important allies to progressive planners, geographers, and policy makers in advancing social and environmental justice for the disenfranchised. They also show that the theological underpinnings of such groups share a lot in common with planning epistemologies for the just city