Bureaucrats, politicians and reform in Whitehall: analysing the bureau-shaping model

Dunleavy's bureau-shaping model has breathed new life into existing debates about the behaviour of senior bureaucrats. This article assesses the utility of this model as an explanation of the development of Next Step agencies in the last decade in Britain, using data drawn from a series of extensive interviews with senior civil servants. Our conclusion is that, although the bureau-shaping model represents a significant advance on previous models of bureaucratic behaviour that stress budget maximization, it is flawed. In particular, we argue that: it pays insufficient attention to the broader political context within which civil servants operate; mis-specifies bureaucrats' preferences; and oversimplifies the distinction between managerial and policy advice work. More specifically, we suggest that any explanation of the development of Next Steps agencies needs to recognize that: politicians rather that civil servants played the major role in their creation; the strategic calculations of bureaucrats were significantly more sophisticated than the model assumes; and the consequence of the reforms has been that senior civil servants have played a greater, rather than a more limited, management role

The Impacts of North American BSE Discoveries on U.S. and Canadian Cattle Prices

Demand and Price Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Optimization guide for programs compiled under IBM FORTRAN H (OPT=2)

Guidelines are given to provide the programmer with various techniques for optimizing programs when the FORTRAN IV H compiler is used with OPT=2. Subroutines and programs are described in the appendices along with a timing summary of all the examples given in the manual

A Radial Velocity Study of CTCV J1300-3052

We present time-resolved spectroscopy of the eclipsing, short period cataclysmic variable CTCV J1300-3052. Using absorption features from the secondary star, we determine the radial velocity semi-amplitude of the secondary star to be K2 = 378 \pm 6 km/s, and its projected rotational velocity to be v sin i = 125 \pm 7 km/s. Using these parameters and Monte Carlo techniques, we obtain masses of M1 = 0.79 \pm 0.05 MSun for the white dwarf primary and M2 = 0.198 \pm 0.029 MSun for the M-type secondary star. These parameters are found to be in excellent agreement with previous mass determinations found via photometric fitting techniques, supporting the accuracy and validity of photometric mass determinations in short period CVs.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (24th January 2012). 10 pages, 9 figures (black and white

Is it ever too early to close and/or automate manufacturing of cell therapies?

The rapidly growing field of cell therapy is providing very promising treatments for conditions that previously were considered untreatable or whose treatments were not considered very effective. These opportunities however do not come without their own set of unique challenges. Patient Specific Cell Therapies (PSCT) can be increasingly difficult to manufacture on a large scale. Each manufactured PSCT is a batch of one, meaning that it is intended for one patient and is not for off the shelf purposes. This can lead to issues with donor variability, time, cost of goods, and ultimately quality of product. These major issues can be greatly remedied if a proper automation system is implemented. This however requires a large amount of time, man power, development, and most importantly money. All these things must be considered when deciding to transition your given therapy from the lab bench toward closed, single use, automated manufacturing. During my presentation I will discuss the factors that will determine if a cell therapy product is ready for and can benefit from incorporating automation into the manufacturing process. The decision on when to move to a more automated process will depend on several variables. One of these variables is what stage of the development process the product is in. It may not be necessary to implement costly technology when there is little proof of concept and the product is not fully developed, however if a major change in the manufacturing process occurs too late in the clinical testing process it would cause major complications with the regulatory approval process. Patient population is also a deciding variable for when to move to a more automated manufacturing process. For example, if a condition qualifies for orphan designation (less than 200,000 cases per year) the costs and time needed to implement process automation may not be exceeded by the benefits of the technology itself. On the other hand, if a product treats a condition like lymphoma it will require a much larger scale of manufacturing where the return on investing in automation is going to be much higher. The number of steps and difficulty of the steps can also determine if automation is beneficial. A product with multiple processing days and manipulations can be heavily improved by automation by decreasing the number of skilled workers needed, the number of hours to complete the manipulation, and the risk of human error during each step. Lastly if the technology available is not sufficient to manufacture a cell therapy on a consistent and repeatable basis it may be beneficial to hold off on automating your process to avoid machine failures or inconsistency with product characteristics. This work will discuss the above variables in detail alongside other risks that occur that may influence the decision point on when and how to automate and close a manufacturing process. This work will highlight studies that have been performed by HCATS, taking on-board over 18 years of experience with over 150 cell therapy companies. As this industry takes off such questions need to be answered with the current data set and the end goal in mind. A walk through of the questions, answers and case studies will help showcase when and how closed, automation solutions should be implemented

Definition of areas in city centres for transportation planning purposes

This paper describes briefly an investi­gation undertaken by the Department of Transport with the assistance of the National Institute for Transport and Road Research and officials in the Provinces and Local Authorities involved in urban transport planning. Through review of existing methods for defining central business districts it was found that there was no common approach amongst the various metropolitan areas. The study lead to recommended proce­dures to define a hierarchy of areas in city centres. Land values, which are readily available in local authority re­cords, are used as the main criteria. The procedures should give results which not only are comparable from city to city but also are related to transportation planning

Target annihilation by diffusing particles in inhomogeneous geometries

The survival probability of immobile targets, annihilated by a population of random walkers on inhomogeneous discrete structures, such as disordered solids, glasses, fractals, polymer networks and gels, is analytically investigated. It is shown that, while it cannot in general be related to the number of distinct visited points, as in the case of homogeneous lattices, in the case of bounded coordination numbers its asymptotic behaviour at large times can still be expressed in terms of the spectral dimension $\widetilde {d}$, and its exact analytical expression is given. The results show that the asymptotic survival probability is site independent on recurrent structures ($\widetilde{d}\leq2$), while on transient structures ($\widetilde{d}>2$) it can strongly depend on the target position, and such a dependence is explicitly calculated.Comment: To appear in Physical Review E - Rapid Communication

World Heritage and the challenge of climate change: a reform agenda

The General Assembly of States Parties to the World Heritage Convention adopted a policy and strategy on climate change in 2007. Many of its actions remain to be delivered. Climate change has highlighted the limits of a system under stress to respond to an immense challenge. The General Assembly is again considering the issue, and a second World Heritage climate change policy is being developed to provide high-level guidance on response measures. The draft second policy emphasises the role of individual States Parties in addressing climate impacts on their World Heritage sites but says less about the responsibilities of the World Heritage Committee, World Heritage Centre or Advisory Bodies to the Convention in meeting the goals of climate action and achieving an equitable, international and shared response. Nor does it tackle issues related to Outstanding Universal Value, the core of any response to climate change. We develop a conceptual framework for substantive reform and propose actions to enable the World Heritage system to effectively respond to climate change and support the resolution of longstanding, systemic issues. Meaningful response to climate change needs to involve strategic as well as operational elements in a staged response with measurable outcomes and outputs