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New Labour's conceptualisation of public participation in local government creates a tension in public participation practice. Government legislation and guidance require local authorities to develop and provide citizen-centred services, engage the public in policy-making and respond to the public's views. Seen in this light, New Labour policy draws from radical democratic discourse. However, local authority staff are also expected to act in accordance with the direction set by their line managers, the Council and the government and to inform, engage and persuade the public of the benefit of their authority's policies. In this respect, New Labour policy draws from the discursive model of civil society, conceptualising public participation as a method for engendering civil ownership of the formal structures of representative democracy. Tension is likely to arise when the ideas, opinions and values of the local authority differ from those expressed by the participating public. This paper uses a local 'public participation' initiative to investigate how the tension is managed in practice. The study shows how decision-makers dealt with the tension by using participatory initiatives to supply information, understand the views of the public and encourage public support around pre-existing organisational agendas. Problems occurred when citizens introduced new agendas by breaking or manipulating the rules of participation. Decision-makers responded by using a number of distinctive methods for managing citizens' agendas, some of which were accompanied by strategies for minimising the injury done to citizens' motivations for further participation. The paper concludes that New Labour policy fails to deal with the tensions between the radical and discursive models of participation and in the final analysis draws mainly from the discursive model of participation. Furthermore, whilst New Labour policy promotes dialogue between the public and local authority, it does not empower local authority staff to achieve the goal of citizen-centred policy-making.

Entrepreneurship is well established as a development strategy to facilitate youth empowerment in Africa. Existing scholarship on youth entrepreneurship, while informative, remains limited given its focus on either normative institutional structures or individual decision-making behaviors. Recent research offers a contextualist approach, featuring the dynamic relationship between individual behavior and structural context. Engaging and building upon a contextualist approach, this paper offers a place-based study of youth entrepreneurship in Botswana. The paper documents empirical findings revealing trends in youth circumstances and experiences, namely empowerment potential, financial strain and knowledge/skill gaps. It then explores the cultural, political and institutional contextual effects shaping youth entrepreneurship within the Young Farmers Fund (YFF). Drawing on elements of 'best practice,' the paper offers suggestions for enhancing practical entrepreneurship in Botswana through educational, technical and operational means. Although the paper contributes a case study of youth and entrepreneurship in Botswana, it also offers and demonstrates the conceptual framework of contextualism as a useful research tool for subsequent place-based studies.

PurposeThis paper aims to develop a conceptual resilience‐based model that takes account of the competing success factors of patient safety, finance, improvement targets and staff workload in NHS hospitals in the UK.Design/methodology/approachA safe working envelope model was developed from the literature and adapted for use in the NHS. The proposition that finance and targets receive greater management attention was then tested by a pilot study using content analysis of risk management documents of four NHS hospitals.FindingsThe need to succeed on finance and targets received greater attention in the risk management documents than patient safety and staff workload.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a pilot study only, using content analysis of risk management documents from four hospitals to see whether the model developed from the literature warrants further study.Practical implicationsUsing the proposed safe working model will allow the setting and monitoring of failure and marginal boundaries and make more explicit the pressures from the competing success factors in public sector hospitals in the UK.Originality/valueThe development of the conceptual model using ideas from resilience engineering and applying them to NHS hospital management provides a policy and practical approach to improving patient safety.

An experiential exercise is described for simultaneously predicting political races and teaching price theory. Political candidates are treated as futures contracts. These contracts are then traded by the class in a futures market.

Trenbolone acetate is widely used in some parts of the world for its desirable anabolic effects on livestock. Several metabolites of the acetate, including 17β-trenbolone, have been detected at low nanograms per liter concentrations in surface waters associated with animal feedlots. The 17β-trenbolone isomer can affect androgen receptor signaling pathways in various vertebrate species at comparatively low concentrations/doses. The present article provides a comprehensive review and synthesis of the existing literature concerning exposure to and biological effects of 17β-trenbolone, with an emphasis on potential risks to aquatic animals. In vitro studies indicate that, although 17β-trenbolone can activate several nuclear hormone receptors, its highest affinity is for the androgen receptor in all vertebrate taxa examined, including fish. Exposure of fish to nanograms per liter water concentrations of 17β-trenbolone can cause changes in endocrine function in the short term, and adverse apical effects in longer exposures during development and reproduction. Impacts on endocrine function typically are indicative of inappropriate androgen receptor signaling, such as changes in sex steroid metabolism, impacts on gonadal stage, and masculinization of females. Exposure of fish to 17β-trenbolone during sexual differentiation in early development can greatly skew sex ratios, whereas adult exposures can adversely impact fertility and fecundity. To fully assess ecosystem-level risks, additional research is warranted to address uncertainties as to the degree/breadth of environmental exposures and potential population-level effects of 17β-trenbolone in sensitive species. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:2064-2078. Published 2018 Wiley Periodicals Inc. on behalf of SETAC. This article is a US government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.