Firm Performance, Worker Commitment and Loyalty

Using matched employer-employee level data drawn from the UK Workplace and Employee Relations Survey, we explore the influence of worker commitment and loyalty on firm level labour productivity and financial performance. Our empirical findings suggest that worker commitment and loyalty enhance both labour productivity and financial performance at the firm level thereby highlighting a hitherto neglected conduit for improved firm performance. Using employee level data, we also explore the determinants of worker commitment and loyalty in order to ascertain how such attachments to the firm may be engendered. In general, our employee level analysis suggests that it is firm level characteristics (such as appraisal schemes, supervision, suspensions and redundancies) that influence attachments to the firm. Such findings suggest that firms may be able to exert some influence over the loyalty and commitment of its workforce, which, in turn, may affect firm performance

Orthodontists’ and patients’ preferences in website design in the selection of an orthodontic practice: a comparative study

Objective: To determine which website characteristics are preferred by orthodontists, adult patients, and parents of patients. Materials and Methods: 1,000 active members of the American Association of Orthodontists and 750 active orthodontic patients/parents were sampled. Participants rated the importance of website characteristics, indicated presence of those characteristics on the current website, and ranked sample website images. Preferences were compared between orthodontist and the patient/parent group using t-tests and sample websites were compared using ANOVA models and Tukey’s adjusted post-hoc tests. Significance level was set at 0.05. Results: 11 of the 16 website features showed significant differences between patients/parents and orthodontists. Participants preferred sample websites with images of people, information at the top of the page, and an ‘about the doctor’ page with a greater amount of information. Conclusion: This study showed significant differences in preferences between orthodontists and patients/parents, by gender, and between adult patients and parents of adolescent patients

Sediment management for Southern California mountains, coastal plains and shoreline

The Environmental Quality Laboratory at Caltech and the Shore Processes Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography have jointly undertaken a study of regional sediment balance problems in coastal southern California (see map in Figure 1). The overall objective in this study is to define specific alternatives in sediment management that may be implemented to alleviate a) existing sediment imbalance problems (e.g. inland debris disposal, local shoreline erosion) and b) probable future problems that have not yet manifested themselves. These alternatives will be identified through a consideration of economic, legal, and institutional issues as well as an analysis of governing physical processes and engineering constraints. The first part of this study (Phase I), which is currently under way, involves a compilation and analysis of all available data in an effort to obtain an accurate definition of the inland/coastal regional sediment balance under natural conditions, and specific quantitative effects man-made controls have on the overall natural process. During FY77, substantial progress was made at EQL and SPL in achieving the objectives of the initial Planning and Assessment Phase of the CIT/SIO Sediment Management Project. Financial support came from Los Angeles County, U.S. Geological Survey, Orange County, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and discretionary funding provided by a grant from the Ford Foundation. The current timetable for completion of this phase is Fall 1978. This report briefly describes the project status, including general administration, special activities, and research work as of January 1978

The Integrated Polarization of Spiral Galaxy Disks

We present integrated polarization properties of nearby spiral galaxies at 4.8 GHz, and models for the integrated polarization of spiral galaxy disks as a function of inclination. Spiral galaxies in our sample have observed integrated fractional polarization in the range < 1% to 17.6%. At inclinations less than 50 degrees, the fractional polarization depends mostly on the ratio of random to regular magnetic field strength. At higher inclinations, Faraday depolarization associated with the regular magnetic field becomes more important. The observed degree of polarization is lower (<4%) for more luminous galaxies, in particular those with L_{4.8} > 2 x 10^{21} W/Hz. The polarization angle of the integrated emission is aligned with the apparent minor axis of the disk for galaxies without a bar. In our axially symmetric models, the polarization angle of the integrated emission is independent of wavelength. Simulated distributions of fractional polarization for randomly oriented spiral galaxies at 4.8 GHz and 1.4 GHz are presented. We conclude that polarization measurements, e.g. with the SKA, of unresolved spiral galaxies allow statistical studies of the magnetic field in disk galaxies using large samples in the local universe and at high redshift. As these galaxies behave as idealized background sources without internal Faraday rotation, they can be used to detect large-scale magnetic fields in the intergalactic medium.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures; Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Differential dependencies of monocytes and neutrophils on dectin-1, dectin-2 and complement for the recognition of fungal particles in inflammation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

HTC Scientific Computing in a Distributed Cloud Environment

This paper describes the use of a distributed cloud computing system for high-throughput computing (HTC) scientific applications. The distributed cloud computing system is composed of a number of separate Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds that are utilized in a unified infrastructure. The distributed cloud has been in production-quality operation for two years with approximately 500,000 completed jobs where a typical workload has 500 simultaneous embarrassingly-parallel jobs that run for approximately 12 hours. We review the design and implementation of the system which is based on pre-existing components and a number of custom components. We discuss the operation of the system, and describe our plans for the expansion to more sites and increased computing capacity

Long-Wavelength, Free-Free Spectral Energy Distributions from Porous Stellar Winds

The influence of macroclumps for free-free spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of ionized winds is considered. The goal is to emphasize distinctions between microclumping and macroclumping effects. Microclumping can alter SED slopes and flux levels if the volume filling factor of the clumps varies with radius; however, the modifications are independent of the clump geometry. To what extent does macroclumping alter SED slopes and flux levels? In addressing the question, two specific types of macroclump geometries are explored: shell fragments ("pancake"-shaped) and spherical clumps. Analytic and semi-analytic results are derived in the limiting case that clumps never obscure one another. Numerical calculations based on a porosity formalism is used when clumps do overlap. Under the assumptions of a constant expansion, isothermal, and fixed ionization wind, the fragment model leads to results that are essentially identical to the microclumping result. Mass-loss rate determinations are not affected by porosity effects for shell fragments. By contrast, spherical clumps can lead to a reduction in long-wavelength fluxes, but the reductions are only significant for extreme volume filling factors.Comment: to appear in MNRA