The strong, long-range electrostatic forces described by Coulomb's law disappear for ions in water, and the behavior of these ions is instead controlled by their water affinity – a weak, short-range force which arises from their charge density. This was established experimentally in the mid-1980s by size-exclusion chromatography on carefully calibrated Sephadex® G-10 (which measures the effective volume and thus the water affinity of an ion) and by neutron diffraction with isotopic substitution (which measures the density and orientation of water molecules near the diffracting ion and thus its water affinity). These conclusions have been confirmed more recently by molecular dynamics simulations, which explicitly model each individual water molecule. This surprising change in force regime occurs because the oppositely charged ions in aqueous salt solutions exist functionally as ion pairs (separated by 0, 1 or 2 water molecules) as has now been shown by dielectric relaxation spectroscopy; this cancels out the strong long-range electrostatic forces and allows the weak, short-range water affinity effects to come to the fore. This microscopic structure of aqueous salt solutions is not captured by models utilizing a macroscopic dielectric constant. Additionally, the Law of Matching Water Affinity, first described in 1997 and 2004, establishes that contact ion pair formation is controlled by water affinity and is a major determinant of the solubility of charged species since only a net neutral species can change phases.

This article uses John Kingdon’s multiple streams framework as an analytical tool to consider how the policy issue of ‘job quality’, in the guises of ‘decent work’ and ‘fair work’, developed a ‘career’ in Scotland between 2013 and 2017. The aim is to understand why, despite the efforts of a variety of policy entrepreneurs and the openness of the Scottish Government to this policy problem, job quality did not arrive on the Scottish Government’s decision agenda. The article finds that the crucial ‘policy window’ did not open due to the 2016 ‘Brexit’ decision dramatically changing the political landscape.

The article demonstrates the applicability of Kingdon’s framework for agenda-setting analysis in a parliamentary environment and constitutes a rare application of the framework to a ‘live’ policy issue.

The authors were involved in a research and advocacy project on ‘decent work’ that was undertaken in Scotland during 2015 and 2016 and therefore were amongst the policy entrepreneurs seeking to place job quality on the Scottish Government’s agenda.

Growth patterns are known to differ between breastfed and formula-fed infants, but little is known about the relative impact of maternal smoking in pregnancy vs. feeding mode on growth trajectory in infancy. We conducted a secondary analysis of a trial, the TIGGA trial involving 290 healthy infants, to examine whether smoking in pregnancy modified the association between feeding mode and body composition of infants. Fat mass (FM) and fat free mass (FFM) were estimated at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 months of age using bioimpedance spectroscopy. Formula-fed infants (n=190) had a higher mean FFM at four months [mean difference (MD): 160g, 95% CI: 50.4, 269.5g, p<0.05)] and six months (MD: 179g, 95% CI: 41.5, 316.9g, p<0.05) compared with the breast-fed infants (n=100). Subgroup analysis of breastfed vs. formula-fed infants by maternal smoking status in pregnancy showed that there were no differences in the FM and FFM between the breastfed and formula-fed infants whose mothers did not smoke in pregnancy. Formula-fed infants whose mothers smoked in pregnancy were smaller at birth and had a lower FM% and higher FFM% at one month compared with infants of non-smoking mothers regardless of feeding mode, but the differences were not significant at other time points. Adequately powered prospective studies with longitudinal follow up, specifically designed to examine the relationship between maternal smoking in pregnancy, feeding mode and the body composition of infants, are warranted to better understand the relative impact of maternal smoking, feeding practice and the growth trajectory of infants.