Fast Food Shutdown: From disorganisation to action in the service sector

This article discusses the Fast Food Shutdown, a strike on 4 October 2018 that involved Wetherspoon, McDonald’s, TGI Fridays and UberEats workers in the United Kingdom. It compares the different strategies of the Bakers Food and Allied Workers’ Union at Wetherspoon and Industrial Workers of the World at UberEats. The two case studies, drawing on the authors’ ongoing ethnographic research, provide important examples of successful precarious worker organising. In particular, the argument focuses on the role of action in organising, as well as the relationship between the rank-and-file and the union. While these could point the way to the recomposition of the workers movement – both in greenfield sectors and within existing unions – there remain important questions about how these experiences can be generalised

Lived experiences of informal caregivers of people with chronic musculoskeletal pain: a systematic review and meta-ethnography

BACKGROUND: People with chronic pain often seek support from friends and family for everyday tasks. These individuals are termed informal caregivers. There remains uncertainty regarding the lived experiences of these people who care for individuals with chronic musculoskeletal pain. The aim of this paper is to synthase the evidence on the lived experiences of informal caregivers providing care to people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. METHODS: A systematic literature review was undertaken of published and unpublished literature databases including: EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed, the WHO International Clinical Trial Registry and ClinicalTrials.gov registry (to September 2019). Qualitative studies exploring the lived experiences of informal caregivers of people with chronic musculoskeletal pain were included. Data were synthesised using a meta-ethnography approach. Evidence was evaluated using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) qualitative appraisal tool. RESULTS: From 534 citations, 10 studies were eligible (360 participants: 171 informal caregivers of 189 care recipients). The evidence was moderate quality. Seven themes arose: the relationship of caregivers to healthcare professionals, role reversal with care recipients; acting the confidant to the care recipient; a constant burden in caregiving; legitimising care recipient’s condition; knowledge and skills to provide caregiving; and the perception of other family members and wider-society to the caregiver/care recipient dyad. CONCLUSIONS: The lived experiences of caregivers of people with chronic musculoskeletal pain is complex and dynamic. There is an inter-connected relationship between caregivers, care recipients and healthcare professionals. Exploring how these experiences can be modified to improve a caregiving dyad’s lived experience is now warranted

FACTORS LIMITING BACTERIAL GROWTH : III. CELL SIZE AND "PHYSIOLOGIC YOUTH" IN BACTERIUM COLI CULTURES

1. Measurements of the rate of oxygen uptake per cell in transplants of Bacterium coli from cultures of this organism in different phases of growth have given results in essential agreement with the observations of others. 2. Correlations of viable count, centrifugable nitrogen, and turbidity, with oxygen consumption, indicate that the increased metabolism during the early portion of the growth period is quantitatively referable to increased average size of cells. 3. Indirect evidence has suggested that the initial rate of growth of transplants is not related to the phase of growth of the parent culture

THE INFLUENCE OF HOST RESISTANCE ON VIRUS INFECTIVITY AS EXEMPLIFIED WITH BACTERIOPHAGE

Parker (1) has shown that the results of infectivity measurements with vaccinia virus may be interpreted as a Poisson distribution of single infective particles among aliquots of the virus obtained by dilution. Thus, if it may be assumed that there exists a quantity of virus invariably necessary and invariably sufficient to produce a lesion in the skin of the rabbit, the behavior on dilution requires this quantity to be a single indivisible particle. However, if the possibility exists that some independently varying factor influences the appearance of lesions in the inoculated sites, the Poisson distribution is inapplicable, and a different conclusion is reached. In this case the results can only be interpreted as an indication of a particular kind of dose response among the animals tested. Bryan and Beard (2) have called attention to the fact that the single particle response curve has considerable resemblance to the hyperbolic curves characteristic of certain drugs (per cent of positive responses plotted against dosage). Their discussion gives the impression that the reverse is also necessarily true. Actually