The Political Economy of Organisational Violence in Chinese Industry

"Organisational violence" involves wilful, illegal business behaviour that has the potential to harm workers, consumers, or the environment. We use a combined perspective from the fields of political economy and criminology to examine the incongruously high level of organisational violence among Chinese firms that exists despite robust efforts by the government to put forth regulatory laws that prohibit it. As the explanation for this incongruity, we assert two conditions that synergistically interact in a bidirectional relationship: 1) the complex legal structural barriers to effective enforcement against organisational violence caused by a politically biased and administratively fragmented Chinese political system, and 2) a socially disorganised business environment that does not recursively message the wrongfulness of organisational violence. The analysis rejects not only financial gain as a relevant factor in the commission of organisational violence but also other current perspectives on the causes of organisational violence in China

Length-length and weight-length relationships of seven deep-water fishes in the Gulf of Mexico

Regression coefficients for equations of the form Y = a + bX were estimated for total length (TL) and whole weight (W) as a function of standard length (SL) and fork length (FL) and vice versa for seven deep-water fishes. All lengths were measured in millimeters and all weights in grams. There was a significant correlation between weight and length and the types of length measurements for all species. However, the amount of variation explained by each regression varied among species. Weight-length regressions were less precise than length-length regression, as they generally are, because weights of small fish measured at sea are more inaccurate than those of large fish.Marine Scienc

AN ARCHITECTURE FOR ORGANIZATION-WIDE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

An architecture was developed from a synthesis of concepts derived from the literature and field observations to identify and integrate the total decision support (DSS) function in organizations. Four distinct types of decision support systems were identified (corporate planning systems; functional decision support systems; executive information systems; and local decision support systems) and were integrated within a framework that incorporated organizational level, system formality, and decision making mode. The architecture is used as a cohesive framework for discussing research and management issues for organization-wide DSS

Collider Signatures from the Brane World

We discuss some collider signatures of the brane world. In addition to the usual bulk (closed string) fields and brane (open string) fields in the Type I string picture, there are closed string fields, namely, twisted modes, which are not confined on the branes but nonetheless are localized in the extra compactified dimensions. While the coupling of the Standard Model (brane) fields with a bulk mode (such as the graviton) is suppressed by powers of the Planck mass, their coupling to a twisted mode is suppressed only by powers of the string scale M_s, which can be as low as a few TeV. This means these localized twisted fields can have important observable effects in the TeV range, including resonances in dijet invariant mass distributions in \bar p p, pp \to jets + X. Given the current lower bound on the fundamental higher-dimensional Planck scale, the experimental effects of these twisted fields may turn out to be larger than the effects of virtual and real KK gravity modes. The collider signatures of anomalous U(1) gauge symmetries as well as other phenomenological implications of the brane world are also discussed.Comment: Published version (paper shortened to satisfy the requirements of Phys. Lett. B; see version 1 for original-length paper

An albedo map of P/Halley on 13 March 1986

An albedo map is presented of comet Halley from a 10 micrometer image taken from the Wyoming Infrared Observatory on 13 Mar. 1986, and a 7311 A CCD image taken from the Anglo-Australian Telescope about an hour later. To construct this map, the CCD image was first converted from 0.49 arcsec/pixel to 1 arcsec/pixel to match the scale of the 10 micron image, then both were calibrated in lambda F sub lambda units. According to the albedo map, most of the inner coma of Halley lies between gamma = 0.04 and 0.08. The overall smoothness of the map is remarkable considering the large dynamic range of the optical and IR maps, and the differences in spatial resolution and image processing

Serious Bacterial Infections Acquired During Treatment of Patients Given a Diagnosis of Chronic Lyme Disease - United States.

The term "chronic Lyme disease" is used by some health care providers as a diagnosis for various constitutional, musculoskeletal, and neuropsychiatric symptoms (1,2). Patients with a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease have been provided a wide range of medications as treatment, including long courses of intravenous (IV) antibiotics (3,4). Studies have not shown that such treatments lead to substantial long-term improvement for patients, and they can be harmful (1,5). This report describes cases of septic shock, osteomyelitis, Clostridium difficile colitis, and paraspinal abscess resulting from treatments for chronic Lyme disease. Patients, clinicians, and public health practitioners should be aware that treatments for chronic Lyme disease can carry serious risks

Frequent somatic mutations of GNAQ in uveal melanoma and blue naevi.

BRAF and NRAS are common targets for somatic mutations in benign and malignant neoplasms that arise from melanocytes situated in epithelial structures, and lead to constitutive activation of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway. However, BRAF and NRAS mutations are absent in a number of other melanocytic neoplasms in which the equivalent oncogenic events are currently unknown. Here we report frequent somatic mutations in the heterotrimeric G protein alpha-subunit, GNAQ, in blue naevi (83%) and ocular melanoma of the uvea (46%). The mutations occur exclusively in codon 209 in the Ras-like domain and result in constitutive activation, turning GNAQ into a dominant acting oncogene. Our results demonstrate an alternative route to MAP kinase activation in melanocytic neoplasia, providing new opportunities for therapeutic intervention

The Value of Singularities

We point out that spacetime singularities play a useful role in gravitational theories by eliminating unphysical solutions. In particular, we argue that any modification of general relativity which is completely nonsingular cannot have a stable ground state. This argument applies both to classical extensions of general relativity, and to candidate quantum theories of gravity.Comment: 5 pages, no figures; a few clarifying comments adde