The European construction social partners: gender equality in theory and practice

This article explores the social partners' role in the gender equality agenda in construction at skilled operative level. It draws on a survey of the European construction social partners that investigated the presence of women in skilled trades and the policies, collective agreements and practices that play a role in women's integration. The responses indicate that the construction industry still displays inertia and conservatism, and that the social partners corroborate rather than counter this. They express a 'discourse' of gender equality, but this does not automatically lead to equal opportunity policies or programmes. The social partners have the platform to make inroads and to change the industry from within, but need further encouragement to put this on their agenda

Bauen und Umwelt Arbeitsplaetze fuer die Zukunft. Eine Dokumentation der Fachtagung der IG Bau-Steine-Erden

IAB-90-0BD0-315000 AK 355(1) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Trace element geochemistry as a tool for interpreting microbialites

Microbialites are critical for documenting early life on earth and-possibly elsewhere in the solar system. However, criteria for microbialite identification are controversial. Trace element geochemistry provides two types of information that aid interpretation of putative microbialites. Firstly, because most microbialites-consist of hydrogenous precipitates, trace elements can be used to investigate the fluids in which the structures formed, thus aiding identification of environments of formation. For example, rare earth elements preserved in microbialites have proven very useful in discriminating depositional environments. Secondly, microbes utilize and concentrate a wide range of elements, including many metals. Preservation of such elemental enrichments may provide a valuable biosignature. Although research in this field is relatively young, high precision, in situ measurement of metals in microbialites using techniques such as laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, now with spatial mapping, have identified consistent enrichments in biologically important metals in microbialites. Hence, trace element studies are finding increasing utility in studying microbialites, and so long as diagenesis and the degree to which specific precipitates represent microenvironments are taken into account, trace element inventories may provide important information about depositional settings and, potentially, metabolic processes within biofilms