Effects of Ostertagia circumcincta larvae and adult parasites on abomasal and intestinal tissues in sheep : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Physiology

Ostertagia circumcincta parasites infect the abomasum of sheep causing damage to the abomasal tissues and significant production losses to the sheep farming industry. Ingested larvae enter the gastric glands and emerge as adults which live in the abomasal lumen. The effect of adult parasites on the abomasum has not been systematically investigated. In the present study, sheep raised to be free of helminth parasites were given either adult O. circumcincta parasites via an abomasal cannula or larvae per os. Adult as well as larval O. circumcincta parasites stimulate hypergastrinaemia, a decreased abomasal pH and elevated serum pepsinogen concentrations. While the concentration of G cells did not change in the larval parasite infected sheep compared with the non-infected control sheep, the total number of G cells was increased due to an increase in mucosal thickness. There appeared to be fewer G cells present in the adult parasite infected sheep compared with the non-infected control sheep, which was most likely due to a depletion of their gastrin content due to overstimulation. The hypergastrinaemia observed during ostertagiasis is not due to a change in the ratio of G:D cells. The lumen dwelling adult O. circumcincta affect the mucosa of the abomasum resulting in an apparent inflammatory reaction, demonstrated by the presence of eosinophils and neutrophils in the lamina propria. Mucous production and/or secretion is also affected, shown by the presence of large mucus-secreting cells in the mucosa. The total wet weight of the abomasum/kg body weight is increased in sheep infected with O. circumcincta, with an increase in the total size of the abomasum. The larval parasites evoke a hyperplasia in both the antral and body mucosae with little change in cell size. In sheep infected with adult parasites, the thickness of the abomasal mucosa is increased in the body, but not the antrum. This increase is most likely due to hypertrophy. Either the larval O. circumcincta or the hypergastrinaemia have trophic effects on the upper duodenum, with an increased mucosal thickness which did not occur more distally. This did not occur in the adult parasite infected sheep. The larval parasites or hypergastrinaemia provoked a hyperplasia in the jejunal mucosa. This did not occur in the adult infected sheep. The larvae and adult parasites did not appear to exert a hypertrophic or hyperplastic effect on the ileum, caecum or colon. Those results indicate that adult O. circumcincta parasites have substantial effects on the ovine abomasum

The Impact of Different HRM Regimes on Labour Productivity: National Results and a Regional Perspective

This paper uses AWIRS 95 and IRWIRS 96-7 data to test whether workplaces which used ‘soft’ versus ‘hard’ Human Resource Management (HRM) policies and practices experienced significant differences in labour productivity improvements. Generally, the results support the proposition that management attitudes, policies and practices which aim to develop workforce skills, commitment and motivation were positively associated with improvements in labour productivity. Very few ‘hard’ practices other than performance pay had the same effect. EEO/AA and maternity leave policies were strongly correlated with improved productivity.human resource management policies, labour productivity

Rethinking leadership: a way forward for teaching leadership?

Purpose – There have again been increasing calls for management educators to strengthen the development of leadership in their programmes. However, it is unclear as to how such calls can be best answered. One way forward may be to rethink our conceptualisation of leadership. This paper seeks to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – Dominant theories of leadership may offer limited help to management educators. The dominant conceptualisation of leadership is questioned using empirical evidence from recent studies and interviews undertaken by the authors which examined managers' understandings of leadership. Findings – This article suggests that mainstream leadership theories are framed by systems-control thinking and highlights a number of issues in respect of teaching leadership. Proposes that a process-relational framing of leadership may be a more useful way to think about leadership. Research limitations/implications – Whilst the interview data drawn upon is exploratory and therefore cannot be taken as conclusive, we hope to stimulate a wider rethinking of leadership than is currently present. Practical implications – Tentative suggestions are presented for responding to calls to improve the teaching of leadership. Originality/value – The paper emphasises a process-relational understanding of leadership and may be seen to offer practical help to management educators concerned with the teaching of leadership

Static, stationary and inertial Unruh-DeWitt detectors on the BTZ black hole

We examine an Unruh-DeWitt particle detector coupled to a scalar field in three-dimensional curved spacetime. We first obtain a regulator-free expression for the transition probability in an arbitrary Hadamard state, working within first-order perturbation theory and assuming smooth switching, and we show that both the transition probability and the instantaneous transition rate remain well defined in the sharp switching limit. We then analyse a detector coupled to a massless conformally coupled field in the Hartle-Hawking vacua on the Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli black hole, under both transparent and reflective boundary conditions at the infinity. A selection of stationary and freely-falling detector trajectories are examined, including the co-rotating trajectories, for which the response is shown to be thermal. Analytic results in a number of asymptotic regimes, including those of large and small mass, are complemented by numerical results in the interpolating regimes. The boundary condition at infinity is seen to have a significant effect on the transition rate.Comment: 31 pages, 28 figures. v3: minor corrections and clarification

Knowledge Management Activities and Strategic Planning Capability Development

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.While the strategic management literature extols the virtues of engaging in strategic planning for superior performance, how a dynamic strategic planning capability can be developed remains underexplored; a knowledge void addressed by the paper through applying knowledge-based theory. A mail survey was sent to high technology firms randomly sampled from the Kompass Directory of UK businesses. Firms were sampled at the SBU level, given the focus on strategic planning capability. An organization’s strategic planning capability derives from extensive information distribution and organizational memory. While learning values is non-significant, symbolic information use degrades the development of a strategic planning capability. By investigating the contributory activities that lead to strategic planning capability development, the findings establish how strategic planning materializes in organizations. Further, the differential effects found for knowledge management activities on strategic planning capability development extends empirical studies that suggest knowledge is always a central tenet of strategic planning. A set of key knowledge activities are identified that managers must address for strategic planning capability development: strategic planning routines and values of search, analysis, and assessment should be appropriately informed by investments in knowledge dissemination and memory on a continual basis. Meanwhile, information misuse compromises strategic planning capabilities and managers must protect against out-of-context or manipulated information from infiltrating into organizational memory. Despite the advent of the Knowledge-Based Theory and its core premise that capabilities derive from knowledge management activities, little research has been conducted into demonstrating the knowledge-based antecedents of a strategic planning capability

Export Performance in Small and Medium Enterprises in New South Wales: Sectoral and Regional Dimensions

This paper discusses the results from a survey of 146 value-adding exporters from regional New South Wales, Australia, the majority of whom were small and medium enterprises, using the Australian definition of having less than 200 employees. This study established that SME regional exporters were successful in gaining and maintaining sales in overseas markets in a variety of product areas. It thus raises the question of what factors lie behind this process. By identifying the causes of successful exporting in regional areas, policy-makers can design programs which best meet the needs of these firms and will encourage growth in their exports in the future.Export performance, small and medium-sized enterprises, sectoral and regional dimensions, Australia

Assessing the Impact of the Workplace Relations Act From 1996 to 2004: Increasing Flexibility or Decreasing Collectivism?

This paper tests the impact of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (WRA) by looking at changes in the behaviour of a panel of workplaces in the Illawarra Region of NSW between 1996 and 2004. The results support the proposition that the major impact has been on the level of unionisation and union density in these workplaces. There was virtually no expansion in the use of enterprise bargaining or AWAs, although there was a small but significant increase in non-union agreement making. Rather than encourage the use of single jurisdictions to register awards and collective agreements, in the Illawarra at least, there was a strong trend to dual State and Federal jurisdictions. Thus the WRA has been relatively ineffective in achieving flexibility and decentralised employee relations goals but has resulted in a high level of decollectivisation.Workplace Relations Act, Illawarra region, flexibility, decollectivisation