Geology of Caphouse Colliery, Wakefield, Yorkshire, UK

The National Coal Mining Museum in West Yorkshire affords a rare opportunity for the public to visit a former colliery (Caphouse) and experience at first hand the geology of a mine. The geology at the museum can be seen via the public tour, limited surface outcrop and an inclined ventilation drift, which provides the best geological exposure and information. The strata encountered at the site are c. 100 m thick and are of latest Langsettian (Pennsylvanian) age. The ventilation drift intersects several coal seams (Flockton Thick, Flockton Thin, Old Hards, Green Lane and New Hards) and their associated roof rocks and seatearths. In addition to exposures of bedrock, recent mineral precipitates of calcium carbonates, manganese carbonates and oxides, and iron oxyhydroxides can be observed along the drift, and there is a surface exposure of Flockton Thick Coal and overlying roof strata. The coals and interbedded strata were deposited in the Pennine Basin in a fluvio-lacustrine setting in an embayment distant from the open ocean with limited marine influence. A lacustrine origin for mudstone roof rocks of several of the seams is supported by the incidence of non-marine bivalves and fossilized fish remains whilst the upper part of the Flockton Thick Coal consists of subaqueously deposited cannel coal. The mudstones overlying the Flockton Thick containing abundant non-marine bivalves are of great lateral extent, indicating a basin-wide rise of base level following coal deposition that may be compared with a non-marine flooding surface

Acro-cardio-facial syndrome

Acro-cardio-facial syndrome (ACFS) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by split-hand/split-foot malformation (SHFM), facial anomalies, cleft lip/palate, congenital heart defect (CHD), genital anomalies, and mental retardation. Up to now, 9 patients have been described, and most of the reported cases were not surviving the first days or months of age. The spectrum of defects occurring in ACFS is wide, and both interindividual variability and clinical differences among sibs have been reported. The diagnosis is based on clinical criteria, since the genetic mechanism underlying ACFS is still unknown. The differential diagnosis includes other disorders with ectrodactyly, and clefting conditions associated with genital anomalies and heart defects. An autosomal recessive pattern of inheritance has been suggested, based on parental consanguinity and disease's recurrence in sibs in some families. The more appropriate recurrence risk of transmitting the disease for the parents of an affected child seems to be up to one in four. Management of affected patients includes treatment of cardiac, respiratory, and feeding problems by neonatal pediatricians and other specialists. Prognosis of ACFS is poor

Human Resource Functioning in an Information Society: Practical Suggestions and Future Implications

This paper explores the state human resources management in an information society. As technology rapidly changes organizations and human resources professionals need to be mindful of the impact that can have on the every day operations in human resources departments. As human resource management is involved in the process of recruitment, selection, and retention of new and current employees, they can play a significant role in maintaining a competitive advantage in the knowledge-based market. Thus, the purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the practical and strategic steps that those in the human resources field can take to facilitate success in this changing economy, as well as to warn against the implications and consequences of failing to meet these important challenges.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

The meaning and measurement of implementation climate

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Climate has a long history in organizational studies, but few theoretical models integrate the complex effects of climate during innovation implementation. In 1996, a theoretical model was proposed that organizations could develop a positive climate for implementation by making use of various policies and practices that promote organizational members' means, motives, and opportunities for innovation use. The model proposes that implementation climate--or the extent to which organizational members perceive that innovation use is expected, supported, and rewarded--is positively associated with implementation effectiveness. The implementation climate construct holds significant promise for advancing scientific knowledge about the organizational determinants of innovation implementation. However, the construct has not received sufficient scholarly attention, despite numerous citations in the scientific literature. In this article, we clarify the meaning of implementation climate, discuss several measurement issues, and propose guidelines for empirical study.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Implementation climate differs from constructs such as organizational climate, culture, or context in two important respects: first, it has a strategic focus (implementation), and second, it is innovation-specific. Measuring implementation climate is challenging because the construct operates at the organizational level, but requires the collection of multi-dimensional perceptual data from many expected innovation users within an organization. In order to avoid problems with construct validity, assessments of within-group agreement of implementation climate measures must be carefully considered. Implementation climate implies a high degree of within-group agreement in climate perceptions. However, researchers might find it useful to distinguish implementation climate level (the average of implementation climate perceptions) from implementation climate strength (the variability of implementation climate perceptions). It is important to recognize that the implementation climate construct applies most readily to innovations that require collective, coordinated behavior change by many organizational members both for successful implementation and for realization of anticipated benefits. For innovations that do not possess these attributes, individual-level theories of behavior change could be more useful in explaining implementation effectiveness.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>This construct has considerable value in implementation science, however, further debate and development is necessary to refine and distinguish the construct for empirical use.</p

Vowel reduction in word-final position by early and late Spanish-English bilinguals

Vowel reduction is a prominent feature of American English, as well as other stress-timed languages. As a phonological process, vowel reduction neutralizes multiple vowel quality contrasts in unstressed syllables. For bilinguals whose native language is not characterized by large spectral and durational differences between tonic and atonic vowels, systematically reducing unstressed vowels to the central vowel space can be problematic. Failure to maintain this pattern of stressed-unstressed syllables in American English is one key element that contributes to a ?foreign accent? in second language speakers. Reduced vowels, or ?schwas,? have also been identified as particularly vulnerable to the co-articulatory effects of adjacent consonants. The current study examined the effects of adjacent sounds on the spectral and temporal qualities of schwa in word-final position. Three groups of English-speaking adults were tested: Miami-based monolingual English speakers, early Spanish-English bilinguals, and late Spanish-English bilinguals. Subjects performed a reading task to examine their schwa productions in fluent speech when schwas were preceded by consonants from various points of articulation. Results indicated that monolingual English and late Spanish-English bilingual groups produced targeted vowel qualities for schwa, whereas early Spanish-English bilinguals lacked homogeneity in their vowel productions. This extends prior claims that schwa is targetless for F2 position for native speakers to highly-proficient bilingual speakers. Though spectral qualities lacked homogeneity for early Spanish-English bilinguals, early bilinguals produced schwas with near native-like vowel duration. In contrast, late bilinguals produced schwas with significantly longer durations than English monolinguals or early Spanish-English bilinguals. Our results suggest that the temporal properties of a language are better integrated into second language phonologies than spectral qualities. Finally, we examined the role of nonstructural variables (e.g. linguistic history measures) in predicting native-like vowel duration. These factors included: Age of L2 learning, amount of L1 use, and self-reported bilingual dominance. Our results suggested that different sociolinguistic factors predicted native-like reduced vowel duration than predicted native-like vowel qualities across multiple phonetic environments