Illuminating the craft of policy: an anthropological approach to policy ethnography.

The 'task to come' in anthropological fieldwork is rarely discussed explicitly as a set of underpinning methodological, analytical, conceptual, and theoretical precepts and practices. Drawing on learnings from a study of policymakers in the Australian Public Service - a non-conventional fieldwork location - this paper presents an account of how the anthropologist instituted direction and purpose or 'fruitful ways of looking' as an orientation to policy ethnography and the sense-making journey that follows. This paper progresses three interrelated aims: (1) to argue that, through ethnographic fieldwork, anthropology adds value to understanding the policy setting and its actors as engaged in purposeful and meaningful work underpinned by policy knowledge and expertise; (2) provocate that anthropology should contribute to research agendas outside of critical normative disciplinary interests in power and control; (3) illustrate that preparation is useful to tailor the production of anthropological knowledge to its context. An 'interpretive framework' is described as the culmination of this approach to collecting and interpreting ethnographic field data, demonstrating how this attends to the policy setting as socio-cultural domain with actors engaged in shared practices, routines and rituals, steeped in policy-practitioner skills, knowledge and expertise - or policy 'craft'. Together, this conditioned the anthropological gaze to take in everyday activities involved in policy work and enabled the study of meetings and documents to discern what happens during these structured conversations to better understand how policy staff engage with academic research in meeting their policy responsibilities under the expectations of the evidence-based policy agenda.

pilS loci in Neisseria gonorrhoeae are transcriptionally active.

Piliation is an important virulence determinant for Neisseria gonorrhoeae. PilE polypeptide is the major protein subunit in the pilus organelle and engages in extensive antigenic variation due to recombination between pilE and a pilS locus. pilS were so-named as they are believed to be transcriptionally silent, in contrast to the pilE locus. In this study, we demonstrate the presence of a small, pil-specific RNA species. Through using a series of pilE deletion mutants, we show by Northern blotting and quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR analysis (qRT-PCR), that these smaller RNA species are not derived from the primary pilE transcript following some processing events, but rather, arose through transcription of the pilS loci. Small transcriptome analysis, in conjunction with analysis of pilS recombinants, identified both sense and anti-sense RNAs originating from most, but not all, of the pilS gene copies. Focusing on the MS11 pilS6 locus, we identified by site-directed mutagenesis a sense promoter located immediately upstream of pilS6 copy 2, as well as an anti-sense promoter immediately downstream of pilS6 copy 1. Whole transcriptome analysis also revealed the presence of pil-specific sRNA in both gonococci and meningococci. Overall, this study reveals an added layer of complexity to the pilE/pilS recombination scheme by demonstrating pil-specific transcription within genes that were previously thought to be transcriptionally silent.

Saddle-point solutions and grazing bifurcations in an impacting system.

This paper focuses on the intricate relationship between smooth and nonsmooth phenomena in an impacting system. In particular a boundary saddle-point solution, that is born in a nonsmooth fold, is analysed. Accessible boundary saddle-point solutions play a key role in determining the global dynamics of a system and here we will show how grazing bifurcations can affect their existence.

Interactions between global and grazing bifurcations in an impacting system.

It is well known that the locus of boundary crises in smooth systems contains gaps that give rise to periodic windows. We show that this phenomenon can also be observed in an impacting system, and that the mechanism by which these gaps are created is different. Namely, here gaps are created and disappear at points along the branches of boundary crises where they are intersected by branches of grazing bifurcations. We locate a novel type of double-crisis vertex which we call a grazing-crisis vertex. Additionally, we illustrate several types of basin-boundary metamorphosis that are intricately related with grazing bifurcations.