The role of national identity in determining proposals for devolution in the United Kingdom
This article examines national identity in the three sub-state units of the United Kingdom which were granted devolved powers in 1998 (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). This 
article argues that national identity provides a compelling explanation for why powers were devolved asymmetrically, as compared to federal states where powers are generally uniform at the sub-state level.
The Blair Government, Devolution and Regionalism in the United Kingdom
One of the principal reforms introduced by the Blair governments was the devolution of power from Westminster to elected institutions representing the UK’s territorial nations and regions: a Parliament for Scotland (1999), an assembly for Wales (1999) and an assembly for Northern Ireland (1998). At the same time in England, the Blair governments established regional development agencies in all nine regions (1999). In London this was accompanied by an elected Greater London Authority (2000), although elsewhere a purely administrative regionalism developed. The chapter seeks to review the significance of this major series of innovations to the Blair legacy. Section one provides a historical context to reform. Section two considers the approaches adopted in introducing devolution and regional reform over the period 1997–2007. Section three then considers the implications of devolution and regional reform for UK territorial politics, judged from competing theoretical perspectives.
Thermal incompatibility analysis of metal-ceramic systems based on flexural displacement data.
The feasibility of simple tests or analytical methods for prediction of residual stress states in metal-ceramic (MC) prostheses has not been demonstrated. Biomaterial metal-ceramic strips have been proposed to provide sensitive measures of transient and residual stress states through the measurement of midpoint deflection after cooling from the ceramic sintering temperature. The objective of this study was to apply the elastic-viscoelastic analogy to calculate transient and residual midpoint deflections in MC biomaterial strips and to compare these values with deflections measured with a beam-bending viscometer (BBV). Calculations and measurements were made for five MC systems that were found from a clinical study to be "thermally compatible" systems. Metal strips, 64 mm in length, 3 mm wide, and either 0.5 mm, 1.0 mm, or 2.0 mm in thickness, were veneered with four 0.25-mm thick layers of opaque porcelain. Midpoint deflection of the MC strips (ceramic oriented in the posterior position) was measured during cooling from an initial temperature of 700 degrees C. In general, the directions of the measured residual deflections did not agree with the "textbook" convention that negative deflections are associated with positive thermal contraction mismatch (alpha(M) - alpha(c) > 0) regardless of metal thickness. For a metal thickness of 0.5 mm, the residual midpoint deflection for all thermal contraction mismatch cases, except one, was positive (upward deflection) whereas the residual midpoint deflections were all negative when the metal thickness was increased to 1 or 2 mm, independent of the thermal contraction mismatch. The best agreement between calculated and measured values of residual midpoint deflection (+16 microns vs. +14 +/- 2.3 microns, respectively was obtained for MC biomaterial strips with a Ni-Cr alloy (0.5 mm thick) while the largest difference (+346 microns vs. +61 +/- 43.8 microns) was obtained for MC bimaterial strips with a Au-Pd allow (0.5 mm thick). In all but one case, changes in deflection direction as a function of metal thickness were correctly predicted by the viscoelastic analysis. The results of this study indicate that a viscoelastic model is useful for estimating thermal compatibility conditions of MC systems.