Have industrial relations in the UK really improved?

The number of strikes reported in British industry has been on a downward trend over the past two decades, falling in 1998 to their lowest level since records began. This may indicate that relations within British industry have improved, however, the same period has also witnessed a sharp increase in the number of individual ACAS and employment tribunal cases. We discuss possible reasons for the changes in the patterns of industrial unrest over time and use individual microdata to examine whether the observed decline in strike activity has actually been associated with an improvement in perceptions of workplace industrial relations.Industrial relations; strikes; individual disputes

Everyone's A Winner? Union Effects on Persistence in Private Sector Wage Settlements: Longitudinal Evidence from Britain

Against a background of increased decentralisation in the structure of wage decision making, we analyse the effects of unions on the dispersion and persistence of pay settlements over the medium term using a longitudinal data set covering British private sector establishments over the period 1987-2001. It seems that the union effect of a reduction in wage dispersion in pay levels observed in earlier studies is repeated when we follow wage changes (settlements) over the medium term. Declining union presence seems therefore to account for some of the increase in longer-term wage dispersion over the sample period. The increase in aggregate wage settlement dispersion seems to have been accompanied by an increase in the permanent rather than transitory components of the variance and this stems mostly from the non-union sector.Pay, Wage Change, Unions, Persistence, Inequality

Studies on Synthetic and Naturally Occurring Enzyme Metabolites

In the General Introduction there is included a brief description of the biology and the chemical structure of starch followed by an account of contemporary opinions regarding the metabolism of starch. Carbohydrate is translocated in higher plants as sucrose which must be regarded as both the initial and the end product of starch metabolism. The process whereby it is converted to amylose and amylopectin and then in due season the carbohydrate rermobilized as sucrose are examined in detail. It is shown that all of the enzymic activities invoked are not only possible but have actually been demonstrated either in the higher plants or else closely associated with starch metabolism in other organisms. In the remainder of the Thesis an examination of the free sugars and the sugar phosphates which can be extracted from potato tubers in association with starch granules is described in detail. Potato starch granules were leached with aqueous methanol and the extract concentrated by vacuum distillation. The neutral sugars and the sugar phosphates present in this extract were then separated from each other using an anion exchange resin. The free sugars were identified by a variety of techniques but principally paper chromatography, and a further separation of the mono- and disaccharides was effected by charcoal column chromatography. The concentrations of the various sugars were determined colorimetrically, especial care being taken to adopt methods which gave a specific result for the sugar being examined and avoided interference from the other sugars present. Of the sugars identified, sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose and ribose, sucrose was by far the most abundant (208mum/g. of starch extracted) . Glucose and fructose were present in almost equal amounts (66mum/g. of starch) whilst there was less ribose (26mum/g.) and maltose (12.5mum/g.). In a separate analysis myoinositol was also identified (2. 6mum/g.). The sugar phosphates proved to be more difficult to isolate and analyse. After considerable preliminary exploration it was decided merely to separate by anion exchange chromatography those esters which form a complex with borate from those which do not do so. The phosphate groups were then removed by enzymatic hydrolysis following which the carbohydrate moieties were identified and quantified. Extensive use was made of gas liquid chromatography at this stage. In a typical experiment only of the phosphate associated with starch granules was extracted. Of this extractable phosphate 78% was inorganic whilst of the organic phosphate (120mum/g. of starch) only 9.8% was ascribable to identified carbohydrate phosphates. Of these glycerophosphate was the most abundant (3.25mum/g.) followed by glucose-6-phosphate (2.77mum/g.), myo-inositol monophosphate (2.51mum/g.) and sucrose phosphate (2.13mum/g.). Glucose-1-phosphate and fructose-6-phosphate were also present (0.54 and 0.52mum/g. of starch respectively). In a final section is described the application of a selection of these techniques to starch granules freshly extracted from potatoes of known history. Qualitatively there appeared to be little difference between this starch and starch prepared and purchased commercially except that the presence of free ribose could not be confirmed. However with the exception of inorganic phosphate all of the identified metabolites were extracted in higher concentrations from fresh starch that from commercial starch

Part 1: From Queer/Natures to Queer Ecologies

This is a portion of a roundtable discussion on queer ecologies held on 11 September 2014. The roundtable is also available as a podcast and was produced in collaboration with CoHearence, an initiative of graduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies suppored by NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment)

Part 3: Politics, Resistance, Alliances, and Imbroglios

This is a portion of a roundtable discussion on queer ecologies held on 11 September 2014. The roundtable is also available as a podcast and was produced in collaboration with CoHearence, an initiative of graduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies suppored by NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment)

Part 2: Examining Heteronormativity, Reprocentricity, and Ecology

This is a portion of a roundtable discussion on queer ecologies held on 11 September 2014. The roundtable is also available as a podcast and was produced in collaboration with CoHearence, an initiative of graduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies suppored by NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment)

Part 4: Queer Ecologies at the Limits

This is a portion of a roundtable discussion on queer ecologies held on 11 September 2014. The roundtable is also available as a podcast and was produced in collaboration with CoHearence, an initiative of graduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies suppored by NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment)

Pollination, floral deception and evolutionary processes in Eulophia (Orchidaceae) and its allies.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.Orchids provide a model system for addressing evolutionary and ecological questions both because of their species diversity, and because the packaging of their pollen into pollinia facilitates the estimation of male and female pollination success. This thesis focuses on the ecology and evolution of pollination systems in the African orchid genus Eulophia, with an emphasis on deceptive pollination, mechanisms promoting cross-pollination, and pollinatordriven speciation. Pollination in the deceptive species E. zeyheriana is shown to depend on flower colour and proximity to the rewarding model species, Wahlenbergia cuspidata (Campanulacae). This study demonstrates the functional importance of colour matching between model and mimic in a floral Batesian mimicry system, as well as the importance of facilitation by the rewarding model [chapter 2]. The pollinaria of the vast majority of Eulophia and Acrolophia species undergo reconfiguration following removal by pollinators, similar to the phenomena first described by Darwin in some European orchids and which he hypothesised to be adaptations to limit pollinator mediated self-pollination. In chapter 3, a less common mechanism – anther cap retention – is described for E. foliosa. Observations of reconfiguration times were compared to the respective visit times by pollinators in a number of orchids (including Eulophia and Acrolophia) and asclepiads. In 18 of 19 species, pollinarium reconfiguration times exceed the average visit times, providing empirical support for Darwin’s cross-pollination hypothesis [chapter 4]. All of the 25 species of Eulophia examined are deceptive, but two of the three species in the small, closely related Cape genus Acrolophia examined in chapter 5 are rewarding. This translates into very high levels of pollen transfer efficiency in the rewarding A. cochlearis relative to the deceptive A. capensis and species of Eulophia. In addition, A. cochlearis exhibits high rates of pollinator-mediated self-pollination, as quantified using a novel method based on levels of inbreeding depression during embryo development. In chapter 6 the evolutionary divergence of long- and short-spurred forms of E. parviflora in response to different pollinators is investigated. This shows that divergence has occurred in floral morphology, scent chemistry and flowering phenology and that this can be attributed to adaptations to the respective bee and beetle pollinators of each form. This thesis also includes case histories of bee pollination in an additional five Eulophia species, and beetle-pollination in two other species of Eulophia with dense inflorescences and slow pollinarium reconfiguration [chapter 7]. In addition, four taxa were found to undergo auto-pollination [chapter 8]. The main conclusions of this thesis are that pollination of food-deceptive species can be enhanced by spatial proximity to, and floral colour matching with, sympatric rewarding species; that selection strongly favours traits that promote cross-pollination; that pollinatorshifts can drive speciation; and that floral adaptations for bee-, beetle-, and auto-pollination are found in South African representatives of Eulophia