Gender identity inclusion in the workplace: broadening diversity management research and practice through the case of transgender employees in the UK

Based on 14 in-depth interviews, this paper explores the unique workplace experiences of transgender individuals in the UK employment context. The paper identifies gender identity diversity as a key blind spot in HRM and diversity management research and practice. The findings reveal the range of workplace challenges experienced by transgender employees. Major findings are that discriminatory effects are often occupation- and industry-specific; transition is a period where many transgender workers suffer due to lack of proper organisational support; and expertise deficits exist in supporting and accommodating transgender employees’ needs. In unpacking these experiences, the paper demonstrates the distinctive dimensions of challenges faced by transgender employees, revealing the need for conceptually expanding how we frame diversity and diversity management. Our findings identify the necessity for an emic approach not only to researching diversity but also to devising organisational diversity strategies. The paper provides recommendations for HRM policy and practice in order to develop a more sophisticated approach to achieving inclusion

Microwave-induced nonequilibrium temperature in a suspended carbon nanotube

Antenna-coupled suspended single carbon nanotubes exposed to 108 GHz microwave radiation are shown to be selectively heated with respect to their metal contacts. This leads to an increase in the conductance as well as to the development of a power-dependent DC voltage. The increased conductance stems from the temperature dependence of tunneling into a one-dimensional electron system. The DC voltage is interpreted as a thermovoltage, due to the increased temperature of the electron liquid compared to the equilibrium temperature in the leads

A Modular, Real-Time Fieldbus Architecture for Mobile Robotic Platforms

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The design and construction of complex and reconfigurable embedded systems such as small autonomous mobile robots is a challenging task that involves the selection, interfacing, and programming of a large number of sensors and actuators. Facilitating this tedious process requires modularity and extensibility both in hardware and software components. In this paper, we introduce the universal robot bus (URB), a real-time fieldbus architecture that facilitates rapid integration of heterogeneous sensor and actuator nodes to a central processing unit (CPU) while providing a software abstraction that eliminates complications arising from the lack of hardware homogeneity. Motivated by our primary application area of mobile robotics, URB is designed to be very lightweight and efficient, with real-time support for Recommended Standard (RS) 232 or universal serial bus connections to a central computer and inter-integrated circuit (I(2)C), controller area network, or RS485 bus connections to embedded nodes. It supports automatic synchronization of data acquisition across multiple nodes, provides high data bandwidth at low deterministic latencies, and includes flexible libraries for modular software development both for local nodes and the CPU. This paper describes the design of the URB architecture, provides a careful experimental characterization of its performance, and demonstrates its utility in the context of its deployment in a legged robot platform

Questioning impact: interconnection between extra-organizational resources and agency of equality and diversity officers

This paper examines the change agency of equality and diversity (E&D) officers with a specific emphasis on the role of extra-organizational influences and resources. The paper is informed by qualitative material collected through interviews with E&D officers from 20 higher education institutions in the UK. The paper offers an evidence-based analysis of the utility of extra-organizational mechanisms and intervention programmes for organizational E&D agenda and for the agentic influence of E&D officers. The paper contributes to both academic literature and policy-making. We present original empirical insights into the change agency of E&D officers by exploring the impact of extra-organizational bodies as potential mechanisms for support and influence. At the policy level, the paper provides evidence on the value of extra-organizational resources and tools that are produced by policy bodies in promoting progressive E&D agendas in organizations

Photonic bandgap narrowing in conical hollow core Bragg fibers

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We report the photonic bandgap engineering of Bragg fibers by controlling the thickness profile of the fiber during the thermal drawing. Conical hollow core Bragg fibers were produced by thermal drawing under a rapidly alternating load, which was applied by introducing steep changes to the fiber drawing speed. In conventional cylindrical Bragg fibers, light is guided by omnidirectional reflections from interior dielectric mirrors with a single quarter wave stack period. In conical fibers, the diameter reduction introduced a gradient of the quarter wave stack period along the length of the fiber. Therefore, the light guided within the fiber encountered slightly smaller dielectric layer thicknesses at each reflection, resulting in a progressive blueshift of the reflectance spectrum. As the reflectance spectrum shifts, longer wavelengths of the initial bandgap cease to be omnidirectionally reflected and exit through the cladding, which narrows the photonic bandgap. A narrow transmission bandwidth is particularly desirable in hollow waveguide mid-infrared sensing schemes, where broadband light is coupled to the fiber and the analyte vapor is introduced into the hollow core to measure infrared absorption. We carried out sensing simulations using the absorption spectrum of isopropyl alcohol vapor to demonstrate the importance of narrow bandgap fibers in chemical sensing applications. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC

Smelling in Chemically Complex Environments: An Optofluidic Bragg Fiber Array for Differentiation of Methanol Adulterated Beverages

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A novel optoelectronic nose for analysis of alcohols (ethanol and methanol) in chemically complex environments is reported. The cross-responsive sensing unit of the optoelectronic nose is an array of three distinct hollow-core infrared transmitting photonic band gap fibers, which transmit a specific band of IR light depending on their Bragg mirror structures. The presence of alcohol molecules in the optofluidic core quenches the fiber transmissions if there is an absorption band of the analyte overlapping with the transmission band of the fiber; otherwise they remain unchanged. The cumulative response data of the fiber array enables rapid, reversible, and accurate discrimination of alcohols in chemically complex backgrounds such as beer and fruit juice. In addition, we observed that humidity of the environment has no effect on the response matrix of the optoelectronic nose, which is rarely achieved in gas sensing applications Consequently, it can be reliably used in virtually any environment without precalibration for humidity or drying the analytes. Besides the discussed application in counterfeit alcoholic beverages, with its superior sensor parameters, this novel concept proves to be a promising contender for many other applications including food quality control, environmental monitoring, and breath analysis for disease diagnostics

Surface textured polymer fibers for microfluidics

This article introduces surface textured polymer fibers as a new platform for the fabrication of affordable microfluidic devices. Fibers are produced tens of meters-long at a time and comprise 20 continuous and ordered channels (equilateral triangle grooves with side lengths as small as 30 micrometers) on their surfaces. Extreme anisotropic spreading behavior due to capillary action along the grooves of fibers is observed after surface modification with polydopamine (PDA). These flexible fibers can be fixed on any surface - independent of its material and shape - to form three-dimensional arrays, which spontaneously spread liquid on predefined paths without the need for external pumps or actuators. Surface textured fibers offer high-throughput fabrication of complex open microfluidic channel geometries, which is challenging to achieve using current photolithography-based techniques. Several microfluidic systems are designed and prepared on either planar or 3D surfaces to demonstrate outstanding capability of the fiber arrays in control of fluid flow in both vertical and lateral directions. Surface textured fibers are well suited to the fabrication of flexible, robust, lightweight, and affordable microfluidic devices, which expand the role of microfluidics in a scope of fields including drug discovery, medical diagnostics, and monitoring food and water quality. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Identification of genes induced by BRCA1 in breast cancer cells

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Inherited mutations of the BRCA1 gene predispose to breast, ovarian, and other cancers. The role of the BRCA1 gene in the maintenance of chromosomal integrity is linked to a number of biological properties of its protein product, including transcriptional regulation. In the present study, we have used suppression subtractive hybridisation (SSH) to identify genes induced by BRCA1 by comparing control MCF7 breast carcinoma cells (driver) with MCF7 cells ectopically expressing BRCA1 (tester) and generated a forward subtracted cDNA library. We screened 500 putative positive clones from this library. Two hundred and ten of these clones were positive by differential screening with forward and reverse subtracted probes and the 65 cDNA clones which showed more than fivefold increase were selected for sequencing analysis. We clustered 46 different genes that share high homology with sequences in the GenBank/EMBL databases. Among these, 30 were genes whose function had been previously identified while the remaining 16 clones were genes with,unknown functions. Of particular interest, BRCA1 gene induces the expression of genes encoding DNA repair proteins RAD21 and MSH2, ERBB2/HER2 interacting protein ERBIN, meningioma-associated protein MAC30, and a candidate ovarian tumour-suppressor OVCA1. Northern and Western blot analyses confirmed that the expression of these five genes are up-regulated following BRCA1 overexpression in MCF7 and UBR60-bcl2 cells. This is the first study reporting a set of BRCA1-induced genes in breast carcinoma cells by the SSH technique. We suggest that some known genes identified in this study may provide new insights into the tumour-suppressor function of BRCA1. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved

Smad2 and Smad4 gene mutations in hepatocellular carcinoma

TGF-β is a negative regulator of liver growth. Smad family of genes, as mediators of TGF-β pathway, are candidate tumor suppressor genes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We studied 35 HCC and non-tumour liver tissues for possible mutations in Smad2 and Smad4 genes. Three tumours displayed somatic mutations; two in Smad4 (Asp332Gly and Cys401Arg) and one in Smad2 (Gln407Arg) genes. All three mutations were A:T → G:C transitions suspected to result from oxidative stress as observed in mitochondrial DNA. These observation demonstrate that TGF-β pathway is altered in hepatocellular carcinoma