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.

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.

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.