New Model Unions: Options for the 21st Century

The purpose of this short paper is threefold. First we discuss the underlying properties of the dominant organisational model for trade unions in Britain. Second, we look at options for changing this organisational model. Third, we conclude by looking at what this might imply for the future operation and organisation of trade unions and their engagement with their members

Human Resource Management Diffusion and Productivity Imbalances

In this study, we explore spatial variance in management practices and assess its potential contribution to regional imbalances in productivity. The research builds on a growing body of evidence which indicates that differences in management practices can account for a substantial share of cross-country differences in total factor productivity, and which identifies an important role for management practices in explaining differences in productivity between firms in the UK. We contribute to this literature by studying regional variation in HRM and related management practices using workplace-level (i.e. plant-level) data in Britain, taken from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS). We use these data to map spatial variance in HRM intensity in Britain. We then seek to account for that variance and, in doing so, establish whether regional variance in HRM can help to account for regional variance in productivity. This analysis is complemented by a comparative investigation of equivalent data for France, where levels of productivity and HRM are both higher and less dispersed

UK Trades Unions and the Problems of Collective Action

This paper looks at the financial resources of trades unions in the UK, both updating previous work and attempting to understand the management of first and second order collective action problems. First order problems refer to the problems of initiating collective action and second order problems refer to the management of collective action organisations. Unions are ‘cost disease’ organisations in which expenditure outstrips inflation but revenue may not. Their economic model cannot survive without some form of external subsidy. Both aggregate and case study data – from the largest UK union, Unite – are presented to illustrate the cost disease problem and to suggest options for its management

Influence of relative humidity on tensile and compressive creep of concrete amended with ground granulated blast-furnace slag

This paper presents an experimental study on the influence of ambient relative humidity on tensile creep of plain concrete amended with Ground Granulated Blast - furnace Slag and compares it with its influence on compressive creep. Tensile and compressive creep tests were carried out on concrete specimens of 34.49 MPa compressive strength and 0.56 water/binder ratio at 51, 68 and 100% relative humidity. The results show a linear relationship between compressive creep and relative humidity; this cannot be said about tensile creep. Tensile creep was observed to be more sensitive to change in ambient humidity than compressive creep. Based on equal applied stress, tensile creep was found to be several times higher than compressive creep and the difference was great er in drying creep than in basic creep. On the basis of equal stress/strength ratio, tensile - to - compressive creep ratio was slightly less than 1 for drying creep and much less for basic creep. Keywords: Compressive Creep, Concrete, Relative Humidity, Strain, Strength, Tensile Cree

Cranfield University centre of excellence in counter-terrorism

The formation of Cranfield University’s Counterterrorism Centre of Excellence was announced in late summer 2017. It has been established in conjunction with Pool Re, a mutual reinsurer which underwrites over £2 trillion of exposure to terrorism risk in the UK. The centre will provide thought leadership in catastrophic and unconventional terrorism loss assessment and mitigation so as to improve the UK’s economic resilience. We introduce the reinsurance industry for a technical audience to explain the rationale for the Counterterrorism Centre of Excellence. The centre’s aims and some results from preliminary simulations on explosive blast in a complex city centre performed in collaboration with reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter are presented. The prospects for physics-based simulation, for terrorist insurance loss estimation and for encouraging mitigation in reinsurance are outlined

Study into Average Civil Compensation in Mesothelioma Cases

The research provides estimates of average civil compensation and legal costs for occupational mesothelioma cases. It was designed to inform the development of proposals by both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice in relation to helping mesothelioma victims who cannot trace a liable employer to access compensation and to speed up the settlement process for all victims. Using a variety of measures, average compensation awarded ranged from £137,000 to £153,531 and average legal costs ranged from £22,000 to £28,407. The estimates were based on a survey of 2,334 mesothelioma claims settled between 2007 and 2012. Regression analysis was used to investigate how civil compensation awarded and legal costs varied with the characteristics of the claimant and features of the claim. It was found that civil compensation decreased with the claimant’s age (by around £3,500 per year) and grew over time between 2007 and 2012. Average civil compensation was higher in Scotland than in England and Wales, and also higher where court proceedings were issued and where the claimant was alive at settlement. The length of the case was not associated with the size of civil compensation. The regression analysis found that legal costs increased by £4, on average, for every additional £100 of compensation. Legal costs were higher if the claimant was younger, the claim was made in England and Wales rather than Scotland, the claim was made after 2008, court proceedings were issued, the duration of the case was longer and the claimant was deceased on award

Software that goes with the flow in systems biology

A recent article in BMC Bioinformatics describes new advances in workflow systems for computational modeling in systems biology. Such systems can accelerate, and improve the consistency of, modeling through automation not only at the simulation and results-production stages, but also at the model-generation stage. Their work is a harbinger of the next generation of more powerful software for systems biologists

Relaxed observance of traditional marriage rules allows social connectivity without loss of genetic diversity

© 2015 The Author. Marriage rules, the community prescriptions that dictate who an individual can or cannot marry, are extremely diverse and universally present in traditional societies. A major focus of research in the early decades of modern anthropology, marriage rules impose social and economic forces that help structure societies and forge connections between them. However, in those early anthropological studies, the biological benefits or disadvantages of marriage rules could not be determined. We revisit this question by applying a novel simulation framework and genome-wide data to explore the effects of Asymmetric Prescriptive Alliance, an elaborate set of marriage rules that has been a focus of research for many anthropologists. Simulations show that strict adherence to these marriage rules reduces genetic diversity on the autosomes, X chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, but relaxed compliance produces genetic diversity similar to random mating. Genome-wide data from the Indonesian community of Rindi, one of the early study populations for Asymmetric Prescriptive Alliance, are more consistent with relaxed compliance than strict adherence. We therefore suggest that, in practice, marriage rules are treated with sufficient flexibility to allow social connectivity without significant degradation of biological diversity

Confirmatory factor analysis of the antisocial process screening device: self-report among incarcerated male juvenile offenders

The main aim of the present study was to examine the factor structure, internal consistency, and some additional psychometric properties of the Antisocial Process Screening Device-Self-Report (APSD-SR) among a large forensic sample of incarcerated male juvenile offenders (N = 438). The results, based on this forensic sample, support the use of the APSD-SR in terms of its factor structure, and internal consistency despite the fact an item had to be removed from the callous-unemotional (CU) dimension. Statistically significant positive associations were found with measures of psychopathic traits, CU traits, narcissism, and aggression, as well as negative associations with a measure of empathy. Findings provide support for the use of the APSD-SR among the incarcerated male juvenile offender population

An Agent Architecture for Concurrent Bilateral Negotiations

Abstract. We present an architecture that makes use of symbolic decision-making to support agents participating in concurrent bilateral negotiations. The architecture is a revised version of previous work with the KGP model [23, 12], which we specialise with knowledge about the agent’s self, the negotiation opponents and the environment. Our work combines the specification of domain-independent decision-making with a new protocol for concurrent negotiation that revisits the well-known alternating offers protocol [22]. We show how the decision-making can be specialised to represent the agent’s strategies, utilities and prefer-ences using a Prolog-like meta-program. The work prepares the ground for supporting decision-making in concurrent bilateral negotiations that is more lightweight than previous work and contributes towards a fully developed model of the architecture