Sociology Back to the Publics

This article is a reading of the `new sociology' that is mainly identified with the works of C. Wright Mills and Alvin Gouldner. Its main argument is that during the past 40 years the new sociology gave back a public face to sociology. This distinguishes it from the `old sociology' that had not been able to free itself from `private' social values. It is argued that Mills' power elite and Gouldner's coming crisis theses provided the foundation for a common enterprise among many `new sociologists' to develop a critical and public sociology that would seek to shape what Mills called the `democratic society of publics'.`New sociologists' share a critique of modern societies, namely, that though most modern societies have formal democracies, a substantial democratic social structure of publics is often lacking, due to the erosion of the public sphere by private values

Gendering the careers of young professionals: some early findings from a longitudinal study. in Organizing/theorizing: developments in organization theory and practice

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales

Adhesion of Lactobacillus isolates to intestinal epithelial cells of chicken

A total of 46 Lactobacillus isolates obtained from chicken intestine were assessed on their ability to adhere to the chicken ileal epithelial cell (IEC) in vitro. Twelve out of the 46 isolates showed moderate to good ability to adhere to the IEC. Temperature (between 4°C and 42°C) did not affect attachment. Incubation (contact) time of 30 min was found to be insufficient for the attachment of bacteria to the IEC, but contact time beyond 1 h did not increase this ability. The pH values (4-7) of the suspending buffer did not have any significant effect on the attachment of bacteria to the IEC, but at pH 8 it was reduced significantly (P < 0.05)

The dynamics of two Dimensional Polymer Nematics

The orientation dynamics of a monolayer of a nematic polymer solution were examined for both extensional and simple shear flows. In extensional flow, a 'strong flow/weak flow' criteria was investigated and found to occur at a critical rate of strain that was predicted by the simple molecular model of Doi and Hess. In simple shear flow, evidence of director wagging and flow alignment was obtained

Extensional flows of two Dimensional Polymer Nematics

The transient behavior of a polymeric nematic liquid crystal interface in extensional flows is studied both experimentally and theoretically. Monolayers of the hairy rod polymer phthatocyan-inatopolysiloxane subjected to two-dimensional, transient, extensional flows are modeled with the two-dimensional analogue of the rigid rod model. The scalar order parameter and the director orientation are compared with the experimental observables. Two parameters appear in the model: an average rotational diffusivity and the intensity of the nematic field. The average rotational diffusivity is determined by fitting relaxation experiments. The intensity of the nematic field, which is modeled with the Onsager potential, is determined by starting from the molecular parameters. A good quantitative agreement is obtained between experiments and theoretical predictions

The benefits of Duffing-type nonlinearities and electrical optimisation of a mono-stable energy harvester under white Gaussian excitations

This work is concerned with the performance of a single degree of freedom electromagnetic energy harvester when subjected to a broadband white noise base acceleration. First, using the Fokker–Planck–Kolmogorov equation, it is shown that Duffing-type nonlinearities can be used to reduce the size of energy harvesting devices without affecting their power output. This is then verified using the technique of Equivalent Linearisation. Second, it is shown analytically that the optimum load resistance of the device is different to that which is dictated by the principle of impedance matching. This result is then verified experimentally