The new impulse: or Hawkins and reform: a brief history of the origin, progress, and effects of the present astonishing temperance movement, and of the life and reformation of John H.W. Hawkins, the distinguished leader. Embellished with a correct likeness of said Hawkins.

Mode of access: Internet.

The pied piper of Hamelin : Cavalier tunes ; The lost leader, and other poems /

Mode of access: Internet.

Intergovernmental relations : changing patterns in state-local finances : fact sheet for the Majority Leader, House of Representatives /

"B-247926"--P. 1.

Bella Abzug and the opposition at the International Women's Year conference in Albany, NY

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

The opposition using walkie talkies in the conference hall. Walkie talkies were forbidden and they were thrown out

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Which Boxes Do You Tick on the Outstanding Leader List?

The article published in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) features research by Professor Dhillon from the University of Worcester.

An analysis of parliamentary questions raised by Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh (India) State Legislative Assembly

The use of parliamentary questions is the most popular and visible tool in the hands of the Opposition as a means to make government accountable. Their main purpose is to seek information or press for action. Contemporary parliamentary literature from the UK, Canada, and Australia, however, suggests that parliamentary questions have lost their effectiveness. The literature points out that Question Time in parliaments has become a battle ground between Ruling and Opposition parties in their fight to gain maximum political advantage. In this context, the effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the Indian state legislatures has not been investigated. The aim of this study, therefore, is to analyse the use, purpose and effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the State Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh (India) to explore differences, if any, between Ruling and Opposition parties. In this study, 4023 parliamentary questions asked in the Uttar Pradesh State Legislative Assembly were analysed. The effectiveness of answers was also analysed qualitatively. The results show that half of the total members of the Assembly used this device, out of which 60% of the questions were asked by the Opposition party members. 31% of the questions from the Opposition were seeking information and 69% were pressing for action. The government provided the required information in 96% of the questions in the former category and took action in only 35% of the latter category. Furthermore, 60% of the questions raised by the Opposition were related to constituency matters and the remaining 40% were related to policy issues or public welfare. Comparing the data with the ruling party, the results indicate that the use,purpose and effectiveness of parliamentary questions were similar to that of the Opposition except some minor differences. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of any ‘Dorothy Dix’ questions. The study concludes parliamentary question is an effective device in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Ten truths about Australia's rush to mine and the mining workforce

The sky is falling because the much-vaunted mining ‘boom’ is heading for ‘bust’. The fear-mongering by politicians, the industry and the media has begun in earnest. On ABC TV's 7:30 program on 22 August 2012, Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott blamed the Minerals Resource Rent Tax and the Carbon Tax for making ‘a bad investment environment much, much worse’ for the mining industry. The following day, Australia's Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told us on ABC radio that ‘the resources boom is over’. This must be true because, remember, we were warned to ‘Get ready for the end of the boom’ (David Uren, Economics Editor for The Australian 19 May 2012) due to the ‘Australian resource boom losing steam’ (David Winning & Robb M. Stewart, Wall Street Journal 21 August 2012). Besides, there is ‘unarguable evidence’ that Australia's production costs are ‘too expensive’ and ‘too uncompetitive’: mining magnate Gina Rinehart said so in a YouTube video placed on the Sydney Mining Club's website on 5 September 2012. Can this really be so? What is happening to the mining boom and to the people who depend upon it?

On the Complexity of Universal Leader Election

Electing a leader is a fundamental task in distributed computing. In its implicit version, only the leader must know who is the elected leader. This paper focuses on studying the message and time complexity of randomized implicit leader election in synchronous distributed networks. Surprisingly, the most "obvious" complexity bounds have not been proven for randomized algorithms. The "obvious" lower bounds of O(m) messages (m is the number of edges in the network) and O(D) time (D is the network diameter) are non-trivial to show for randomized (Monte Carlo) algorithms. (Recent results that show that even O(n) (n is the number of nodes in the network) is not a lower bound on the messages in complete networks, make the above bounds somewhat less obvious). To the best of our knowledge, these basic lower bounds have not been established even for deterministic algorithms (except for the limited case of comparison algorithms, where it was also required that some nodes may not wake up spontaneously, and that D and n were not known).

We establish these fundamental lower bounds in this paper for the general case, even for randomized Monte Carlo algorithms. Our lower bounds are universal in the sense that they hold for all universal algorithms (such algorithms should work for all graphs), apply to every D, m, and n, and hold even if D, m, and n are known, all the nodes wake up simultaneously, and the algorithms can make anyuse of node's identities. To show that these bounds are tight, we present an O(m) messages algorithm. An O(D) time algorithm is known. A slight adaptation of our lower bound technique gives rise to an O(m) message lower bound for randomized broadcast algorithms.

An interesting fundamental problem is whether both upper bounds (messages and time) can be reached simultaneously in the randomized setting for all graphs. (The answer is known to be negative in the deterministic setting). We answer this problem partially by presenting a randomized algorithm that matches both complexities in some cases. This already separates (for some cases) randomized algorithms from deterministic ones. As first steps towards the general case, we present several universal leader election algorithms with bounds that trade-off messages versus time. We view our results as a step towards understanding the complexity of universal leader election in distributed networks.

On the Complexity of Universal Leader Election

Electing a leader is a fundamental task in distributed computing. In its implicit version, only the leader must know who is the elected leader. This article focuses on studying the message and time complexity of randomized implicit leader election in synchronous distributed networks. Surprisingly, the most "obvious" complexity bounds have not been proven for randomized algorithms. In particular, the seemingly obvious lower bounds of Ω(m) messages, where m is the number of edges in the network, and Ω(D) time, where D is the network diameter, are nontrivial to show for randomized (Monte Carlo) algorithms. (Recent results, showing that even Ω(n), where n is the number of nodes in the network, is not a lower bound on the messages in complete networks, make the above bounds somewhat less obvious). To the best of our knowledge, these basic lower bounds have not been established even for deterministic algorithms, except for the restricted case of comparison algorithms, where it was also required that nodes may not wake up spontaneously and that D and n were not known. We establish these fundamental lower bounds in this article for the general case, even for randomized Monte Carlo algorithms. Our lower bounds are universal in the sense that they hold for all universal algorithms (namely, algorithms that work for all graphs), apply to every D, m, and n, and hold even if D, m, and n are known, all the nodes wake up simultaneously, and the algorithms can make any use of node's identities. To show that these bounds are tight, we present an O(m) messages algorithm. An O(D) time leader election algorithm is known. A slight adaptation of our lower bound technique gives rise to an Ω(m) message lower bound for randomized broadcast algorithms. 

An interesting fundamental problem is whether both upper bounds (messages and time) can be reached simultaneously in the randomized setting for all graphs. The answer is known to be negative in the deterministic setting. We answer this problem partially by presenting a randomized algorithm that matches both complexities in some cases. This already separates (for some cases) randomized algorithms from deterministic ones. As first steps towards the general case, we present several universal leader election algorithms with bounds that tradeoff messages versus time. We view our results as a step towards understanding the complexity of universal leader election in distributed networks.

Reassessing the impact of yesterday's men

This special seminar to explore the controversy surrounding the Yesterday's Men programme of 1971, and its subsequent significance in the history of British political documentaries, was held at the Institute of Historical Research, London, on 26 January 1994. The seminar opened with a re‐screening of the programme, which featured interviews with Harold Wilson, the then leader of the opposition to Edward Heath's new Conservative government, front bench opposition spokesmen including Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland and Denis Healey, and the political correspondent Peter Jenkins. The discussion was introduced by Dr Jean Seaton and chaired by Professor Peter Hennessy. The principal participants were Joe Haines (Chief Press Secretary to Harold Wilson 1969–76), Brian Wenham (editor, Panorama 1969–71, Head of BBC Current Affairs Group 1971–78) and John Grist (Head of BBC Current Affairs Group 1967–71, Controller, BBC English Regions 1972–77), with further contributions from Philip Whitehead, Professor Ben Pimlott, Peter Rose, David Benn, Professor Colin Seymour‐Ure, Joanna Kayford, Rosaleen Hughes, Hugh Purcell, Murray Weston and Chloe Miller.

The charismatic persona of Colonel Qaddafi

In any list of dictators and antagonists of the West the name of Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi will always rank highly as one of the most memorable, colourful and mercurial. The roles he played to his fellow Libyans, to regional groupings, to revolutionaries and to the West were complex and nuanced. These various roles developed over time but were all grounded in his self-belief as a messianic revolutionary figure. More importantly, these roles and behaviours that stemmed from them were instrumental in preserving Qaddafi’s rule and thwarting challenges to it.

These facets of Qaddafi’s public self accord with the model of “persona” described by Marshall. Whilst the nature of political persona and celebrity in the Western world has been explored by several scholars (for example Street; Wilson), little work has been conducted on the use of persona by non-democratic leaders. This paper examines the aspects of persona exhibited by Colonel Qaddafi and applied during his tenure. In constructing his role as a revolutionary leader, Qaddafi was engaging in a form of public performance aimed at delivering himself to a wider audience. Whether at home or abroad, this persona served the purpose of helping the Libyan leader consolidate his power, stymie political opposition and export his revolutionary ideals.

Trypanosome spliced leader RNA genes contain the first identified RNA polymerase II gene promoter in these organisms

Typical general transcription factors, such as TATA binding protein and TFII B, have not yet been identified in any member of the Trypanosomatidae family of parasitic protozoa. Interestingly, mRNA coding genes do not appear to have discrete transcriptional start sites, although in most cases they require an RNA polymerase that has the biochemical properties of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II. A discrete transcription initiation site may not be necessary for mRNA synthesis since the sequences upstream of each transcribed coding region are trimmed from the nascent transcript when a short m7G-capped RNA is added during mRNA maturation. This short 39 nt m7G-capped RNA, the spliced leader (SL) sequence, is expressed as an ∼100 nt long RNA from a set of reiterated, though independently transcribed, genes in the trypanosome genome. Punctuation of the 5′ end of mRNAs by a m7G cap-containing spliced leader is a developing theme in the lower eukaryotic world; organisms as diverse as Euglena and nematode worms, including Caenorhabditis elegans, utilize SL RNA in their mRNA maturation programs. Towards understanding the coordination of SL RNA and mRNA expression in trypanosomes, we have begun by characterizing SL RNA gene expression in the model trypanosome Leptomonas seymouri. Using a homologous in vitro transcription system, we demonstrate in this study that the SL RNA is transcribed by RNA polymerase II. During SL RNA transcription, accurate initiation is determined by an initiator element with a loose consensus of CYAC/AYR(+1). This element, as well as two additional basal promoter elements, is divergent in sequence from the basal transcription elements seen in other eukaryotic gene promoters. We show here that the in vitro transcription extract contains a binding activity that is specific for the initiator element and thus may participate in recruiting RNA polymerase II to the SL RNA gene promoter.