AIM(1) To determine the plaque inhibition properties of two formulations of alcohol-free mouthwash [0.1% w/w cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) (B) and 0.05% w/w CPC (A)] versus a placebo mouthwash (C). (2) To compare the plaque-inhibiting activity between these two new CPC mouthwashes.MATERIAL AND METHODSA double-blind, crossover study with three 1-week periods was used. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the following groups. Group 1 (n=10) received the mouthwashes A, C and B in the periods 1, 2 and 3, respectively, group 2 (n=11) received the mouthwashes in the order B, A, C, while group 3 (n=11) received the mouthwashes in the order C, B, A. Mean plaque areas and Quigley & Hein plaque index scores were analysed using anova (analysis of variance). Measurements were made at the start of each period (baseline) and at 16, 24 and 40 h.RESULTSMean plaque scores were similar across the groups at baseline. At all time points thereafter, volunteers using mouthwash A or B had significantly lower plaque areas and plaque index scores than those using mouthwash C (p<0.05), but there were no significant differences between the test formulations. At 16 h, the reduction in plaque area relative to mouthwash C was 22% for mouthwash A and 18% for mouthwash B; at 24 h, 11% for mouthwash A and 15% for mouthwash B; and at 40 h, 15% for mouthwash A and 16% for mouthwash B.CONCLUSIONSThe use of both CPC mouthwashes resulted in less plaque accumulation compared with the control. There was no statistically significant difference in plaque accumulation between the two CPC mouthwashes.

Set in the context of the dramatic increases in the price of gas which UK gas consumers have had to endure since 2003, this book explores how it is that UK gas industry liberalisation, which once promised ever lower prices, is now being undercut by the much less liberal continental European marketplace. To do so it uses a wealth of data to build up an analytical picture of the UK gas industry, segment by segment, from well-head to burner-tip. In so doing the respective roles played in gas price formation by the wholesale cost of gas, its transportation costs and the cost of supply by marketing companies are revealed for both industrial and domestic consumers. The central contention is that the replacement of administered arrangements by market relationships and competition have made UK gas prices far more sensitive to insecurities of supply, both small-scale and large-scale strategic. In consequence, companies operating along the gas chain have had to take up defensive positions to manage these new risks, relying particularly on either upstream production or captive domestic consumers to shield them. Nor is it the case that more competition, with more switching by consumers, can provide a remedy. Instead, the UK government will have to consider re-introducing price control regulation for domestic consumers while also requiring upstream companies to protect consumers from volatility by holding more gas in storage. As well as providing new insights into causes of relatively high gas prices in the UK, the book also provides a long-overdue source of reference about the UK gas industry: about its infrastructure, companies, marketplaces, contracts and regulation.

This paper contests the view held by the current UK government and its industry regulator, OFGEM, that liberalisation is good for security of supply. Focusing on the downstream aspects of the security of UK gas supply, on system security, it considers the impact of the different aspects of liberalisation: of legal governance, supply competition, de-integration, market simulation, regulation and the interaction of liberalised gas and electricity markets. Categorising these impacts in terms of security threats and threats to security response, it finds that individually and as a complex collectivity they have increased the risks of supply failure, either potential or already realised, in a variety of ways: from creating increased uncertainty and failing to signal adequate or appropriate investment, to legal ambiguity which divorces responsibility from liability and renders legal liability indeterminate ex ante. Moreover, one of the UK government’s responses to these increased dangers, which it does appear to perceive, is revealed as itself paralysed by the liberalisation paradigm: the government can only intervene pre-emptively with information in attempt to persuade the market to behave as it thinks it should. Meanwhile, however, the government has also had to recognise its default responsibility for security of supply and make preparations to intervene in an emergency situation: liberalisation can only be challenged when it is already too late.

Particularly because a preoccupation with process has tended to dominate the debate about electricity privatisation and liberalisation, this paper focuses on price outcomes by comparing the relative price performance of the French and UK electricity industries between 1990 and 2000. The main conclusion is that in 1990 the state-owned French electricity industry was performing better for most consumers than the state-owned UK industry, and a decade later it was still doing so with respect to the privately-owned UK industry. While this conclusion could be qualified by saying that, heavily prompted or assisted by the Regulator, the UK privately-owned industry has shown itself capable of achieving faster reductions in prices to close the gap between itself and the French, this achievement has been concentrated in the industrial market and even there the very significant gains were mainly restricted to the very largest consumers. In the context of the European Union the UK is shown to have performed relatively poorly for the smallest domestic consumers and, while both countries did much better in the rankings of industrial prices, they were still a long way behind the top performers.

Drawing on extensive empirical research over the last decade, this paper analyses the changes in the corporate structure of the North American natural gas industry which have been stimulated by liberalisation, and considers whether they are likely to be imitated in the context of the increasing pace of European liberalisation as the European Natural Gas Directive comes into force. It finds that the European context differs in very significant respects from that of North America such that, whereas horizontal integration to re-establish market power has been a significant response to liberalisation in North America, incumbents in Europe will still be able to benefit from market power derived from vertical integration for some time to come.

Waterfront revitalisation in naval ports involves economic restructuring, socio-political reorientation and the re-use of highly specialised facilities made redundant by far-reaching changes in national and international defence strategies. Not least because of the opportunities and challenges presented by naval heritage resources, these changes are comparable to, but significantly different from, those associated with commercial ports. This paper explores methodological approaches to the problem of evaluating strategies based on the waterfront in three major British naval ports. Critical analysis of outcomes and issues is employed to propose an evaluative framework for heritage-based revitalisation in naval cityports in a wider context.

This paper investigates the impact of oil company investments on the world coal industry since the first oil price shock of 1973. It details the scope of these investments, both in the USA and elsewhere, and demonstrates how they have served to destabilize and depress international coal prices. In particular it establishes a novel and robust link between oil company investment in US coal which is sold on the domestic market and the behaviour of US coal export prices.

The lack of an effective European Community (EC) energy policy is discussed in the context of the different degrees and kinds of energy import dependency faced by the different member states. The way in which these contrasting energy economies have impinged on the evolution of EC energy policy, rendering it largely ineffectual, is then explored over the period 1974 to 1992. The general theme is illustrated by focusing on the evolution of EC policy towards the coal industry, identifying how it has been impotent in the face of national government policies and perverse in terms of its recent outcomes. This argument is supported by data comparing the productivity performances of the different EC coal industries.

As a contribution to the debate about the future of the UK coal industry this paper provides an overview of the corporate structure of the world coal industry, detailing company diversification, ownership, transnationality, concentration of production and profitability. Its main argument, which has a strong bearing on coal import policy, is that whereas the world coal industry and international trade currently exhibit all the signs of overproduction, hypercompetition and declining profitability, there is no reason to assume that this is a stable scenario. The company structure of the export sector variously indicates a potential for supply disruption, cost escalation and informal collusion, all of which have implications for the future level of prices -particularly as the market tightens once so-called 'marginal' producers like the UK are knocked out of the market.

Western thought has for several hundred years been plagued by the reductionist malady, one form of which is that men and animals are nothing but complex machines. Having failed in this direction, some have invented machines and then promptly endowed them with human attributes. Plato would have been charmed by the ironic twist Other cases include electric current flow, which it appears we have to conceive as consisting of three dimensional objects in motion, the strange idea in biology that the first living entity must be both simple and astonishingly complex, and the psychological notion that every notion is the consequent of antecedent causal chains. All four ideas involve basic contradictions which it would have delighted Socrates and his friends to discuss.