Employability and Job Status as Moderators of the Effects of Job Insecurity on Work Outcomes

Despite greater use of temporary employment contracts, little is known about how employees react to job length uncertainty. Individual careers within the safety of one or two primary organisations are no longer the norm. This study investigates the effects of job insecurity and employment status (temporary/permanent) on work outcomes. Three hundred and ninety-one employees (122 temporary and 269 permanent) in low to medium level non-academic positions from two Australian universities completed a survey. The results show that a belief that comparable employment is easily available did not alleviate the negative effects of job insecurity. Work attitudes for temporaries and permanents though were differentially influenced by employee perceptions of their own employability

Discovery of Resources and Conflict in the Interstate System, 1816-2001

This study tests a theory detailing the increased likelihood of conflict following an initial resource discovery in the discovering nation and its region. A survey of prior literature shows a multitude of prior research concerning resources and nations' willingness to initiate conflict over those resources, but this prior research lacks any study concerning the effects of the discovery of resources on interstate conflict. The theory discusses the increased likelihood of conflict in the discovering nation as both target and initiator. It further looks at the increased chance of conflict in the discoverer's region due to security dilemmas and proxy wars. The results show strong support for the theory, suggesting nations making new resource discoveries must take extra care to avoid conflict

Learning From Customers: Individual and Organizational Effects in Outsourced Radiological Services

The ongoing fragmentation of work has resulted in a narrowing of tasks into smaller pieces that can be sent outside the organization and, in many instances, around the world. This trend is shifting the boundaries of organizations and leading to increased outsourcing. Though the consolidation of volume may lead to productivity improvement, little is known about how this shift toward outsourcing influences learning by providers of outsourced services. When producing output, the content of the knowledge gained can vary from one unit to the next. One dimension along which output can vary—a dimension with particular relevance in outsourcing—is the end customer for whom it is produced. The performance benefits of such customer experience remain largely unexamined. We explore this dimension of volume-based learning in a setting where doctors at an outsourcing firm complete radiological reads for hospital customers. We examine more than 2.7 million cases read by 97 radiologists for 1,431 customers and find evidence supporting the benefits of customer-specific experience accumulated by individual radiologists. Additionally, we find that variety in an individual’s customer experience may increase the rate of individual learning from customer-specific experience for a focal task. Finally, we find that the level of experience with a customer for the entire outsourcing firm also yields learning and that the degree of customer depth moderates the impact of customer-specific experience at the individual level. We discuss the implications of our results for the study of learning as well as for providers and consumers of outsourced services

Transformation of Undifferentiated Thy-1lo B220+ Thymic Lymphoid Cells by the Abelson Murine Leukemia Virus

Intrathymic injection of the Abelson murine leukemia virus (A-MuLV) results in transformation of immature T and B lymphoid cells. In this report we demonstrate that the concentration of A-MuLV injected into murine thymi influences the selection of the transformation target. Thus, concentrated A-MuLV gives rise to Thy-1+ B220- thymomas. In contrast, dilute virus induces B220+ thymomas that also express low levels of Thy- 1 (Thy-1lo), a phenotype that is similar to marrow-derived progenitor B-lymphoid cells (pro-B cells) that are highly susceptible to A-MuLV transformation in vitro. However, rare B220+ lymphoid cells isolated from normal adult thymi were not transformed by A-MuLV in vitro, while B220+ cells isolated from bone marrow were highly susceptible to transformation by A-MuLV. The Thy-1lo B220+population in the primary thymomas had not rearranged TCRγ, TCRβ, or Igκ genes, but contained subpopulations that assembled Ig DJH or VDJH genes and were therefore similar to transformed pro- and pre-B cells obtained from A-MuLV infected fetal liver and adult bone marrow, respectively. However, unlike A-MuLV-transformed pro- and pre-B cells, many (40– 70%) of the Thy-1lo B220+ transformed thymoma cells had not rearranged Igh genes, and therefore appear to represent undifferentiated lymphoid cells. We conclude that A-MuLV may transform an undifferentiated lymphoid target in the thymus

Size and Exhumation Rate of Ultrahigh-Pressure Terranes Linked to Orogenic Stage

A growing set of data indicates a stark contrast between the evolution of two types of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) terranes: large terranes that evolved slowly (over 10–30 Myr), and small terranes that formed and were exhumed on timescales of \u3c 10 Myr. Here we compare the characteristics – area, thickness, formation rate, exhumation rate, age, and tectonic setting – of these two endmember types of UHP terrane worldwide. We suggest that the two UHP terrane types may form during different orogenic stages because of variations in the buoyancy and traction forces due to different proportions of subducting crust and mantle lithosphere or to different rates of subduction. The initial stages of continent collision involve the subduction of thin continental crust or microcontinents, and thus tectonic forces are dominated by the density of the oceanic slab; subduction rates are rapid and subduction angles are initially steep. However, as collision matures, thicker and larger pieces of continental material are subducted, and the positive buoyancy of the down-going slab becomes more prominent; subduction angles become gentle and convergence slows. Assessing the validity of this hypothesis is critical to understanding the physical and chemical evolution of Earth\u27s crust and mantle. Included here is the post-print copy of this article. The final publication is available via ScienceDirect at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X1100756

Intra- and interspecies interactions between prion proteins and effects of mutations and polymorphisms

Recently, crystallization of the prion protein in a dimeric form was reported. Here we show that native soluble homogenous FLAG-tagged prion proteins from hamster, man and cattle expressed in the baculovirus system are predominantly dimeric. The PrP/PrP interaction was confirmed in Semliki Forest virus-RNA transfected BHK cells co-expressing FLAG- and oligohistidine-tagged human PrP. The yeast two-hybrid system identified the octarepeat region and the C-terminal structured domain (aa90-aa230) of PrP as PrP/PrP interaction domains. Additional octarepeats identified in patients suffering from fCJD reduced (wtPrP versus PrP+90R) and completely abolished (PrP+90R versus PrP+90R) the PrP/PrP interaction in the yeast two-hybrid system. In contrast, the Met/Val polymorphism (aa129), the GSS mutation Pro102Leu and the FFI mutation Asp178Asn did not affect PrP/PrP interactions. Proof of interactions between human or sheep and bovine PrP, and sheep and human PrP, as well as lack of interactions between human or bovine PrP and hamster PrP suggest that interspecies PrP interaction studies in the yeast two-hybrid system may serve as a rapid pre-assay to investigate species barriers in prion diseases