Newcastle University

About: Newcastle University is a education organization based out in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 31772 authors who have published 71187 publications receiving 2539147 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Institutionalist Analysis, Communicative Planning, and Shaping Places

Abstract: This article reviews the developments in the new institutionalism in social science and their relation to communicative planning theory, with emphasis on the relevance to the practcal task of responding to demands for a more place-conscious evolution in public policy. I trace the evolution of forms of governance that are more responsive to the multiple claims and social worlds of civil society and include discussion of the social-constructionist conception of institutions, the significance of actors and networks, the interrelation between structure and agency, and the cultural dimesions of social networks. The implications for developing governance capability or instittional capacity are also explored. In reviewing comnmunicative planning theory, I discuss how Habermas's approach to communicative ation may be reworked or positioned in an institutionalist perspective. Finally, I explore how these developments can be used to dvelop understanding and strategies for evoling more inclusionary approaches to int...

A rational model for assessing and evaluating complex interventions in health care

Abstract: Understanding how new clinical techniques, technologies and other complex interventions become normalized in practice is important to researchers, clinicians, health service managers and policy-makers. This paper presents a model of the normalization of complex interventions. Between 1995 and 2005 multiple qualitative studies were undertaken. These examined: professional-patient relationships; changing patterns of care; the development, evaluation and implementation of telemedicine and related informatics systems; and the production and utilization of evidence for practice. Data from these studies were subjected to (i) formative re-analysis, leading to sets of analytic propositions; and to (ii) a summative analysis that aimed to build a robust conceptual model of the normalization of complex interventions in health care. A normalization process model that enables analysis of the conditions necessary to support the introduction of complex interventions is presented. The model is defined by four constructs: interactional workability; relational integration; skill set workability and contextual integration. This model can be used to understand the normalization potential of new techniques and technologies in healthcare settings The normalization process model has face validity in (i) assessing the potential for complex interventions to become routinely embedded in everyday clinical work, and (ii) evaluating the factors that promote or inhibit their success and failure in practice.

The Structural Basis for Control of Eukaryotic Protein Kinases

Abstract: Eukaryotic protein kinases are key regulators of cell processes. Comparison of the structures of protein kinase domains, both alone and in complexes, allows generalizations to be made about the mechanisms that regulate protein kinase activation. Protein kinases in the active state adopt a catalytically competent conformation upon binding of both the ATP and peptide substrates that has led to an understanding of the catalytic mechanism. Docking sites remote from the catalytic site are a key feature of several substrate recognition complexes. Mechanisms for kinase activation through phosphorylation, additional domains or subunits, by scaffolding proteins and by kinase dimerization are discussed.

A Smart Contract for Boardroom Voting with Maximum Voter Privacy

Abstract: We present the first implementation of a decentralised and self-tallying internet voting protocol with maximum voter privacy using the Blockchain. The Open Vote Network is suitable for boardroom elections and is written as a smart contract for Ethereum. Unlike previously proposed Blockchain e-voting protocols, this is the first implementation that does not rely on any trusted authority to compute the tally or to protect the voter’s privacy. Instead, the Open Vote Network is a self-tallying protocol, and each voter is in control of the privacy of their own vote such that it can only be breached by a full collusion involving all other voters. The execution of the protocol is enforced using the consensus mechanism that also secures the Ethereum blockchain. We tested the implementation on Ethereum’s official test network to demonstrate its feasibility. Also, we provide a financial and computational breakdown of its execution cost.