Global unions as imperfect multilateral organizations: an international relations perspective

We apply an international relations framework and the notion of multilateral organizations as a means of understanding the nature of trade union internationalism, the conditions under which it operates. We argue that international trade unionism involves an imperfect multilateralism which requires close working relationships between small groups of unions in order to function, that is, a ‘minilateral’ method of working. By using this framework we attempt to highlight the intrinsic durability and adaptability of the Global Unions and also identify areas of activity that serve to strengthen them as organisations, primarily by building affiliates’ engagement and investment in them

Sea breeze: Induced mesoscale systems and severe weather

Sea-breeze-deep convective interactions over the Florida peninsula were investigated using a cloud/mesoscale numerical model. The objective was to gain a better understanding of sea-breeze and deep convective interactions over the Florida peninsula using a high resolution convectively explicit model and to use these results to evaluate convective parameterization schemes. A 3-D numerical investigation of Florida convection was completed. The Kuo and Fritsch-Chappell parameterization schemes are summarized and evaluated

Reversing performance in the UK National Health Service: from targets to teams

The UK’s 2010 and 2013 public inquiries into the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal estimated that between 400 and 1,200 people died unnecessarily in just a four-year period. The inquiries, carried out by Robert Francis QC, identified a range of performance management problems within the National Health Service (NHS) stemming from a widespread preoccupation with nationally set targets, emphasizing an organizing principle of reducing costs rather than delivering quality patient care. The inquiries conclude that there had been a systemic failure at Mid Staffs; including a culture of bullying and secrecy regarding patient care, a focus on achieving externally set targets and budgeting, and low staff morale. This was explained, in part, by the performance culture in place where frontline staff worked within an “endemic culture of bullying” (Francis, 2010: Vol 1. B.38), forced to prioritize targets over patient welfare for fear of victimization and job loss which incentivized short cuts and “unacceptable standards of performance” (Francis, 2013: 111). Virtually no organization emerges from the inquiries with credit except the local campaign set up by the relatives of the victims. The reports provide few concrete recommendations to improve performance despite an emphasis within the Francis report on the urgent need for the NHS to reform its performance management. Although we offer no magic solutions to the structural problems across the organization, our proposal is that an important aspect of reform should be a reorientation away from targets and top-down management toward a model of inter-disciplinary and inter-organizational team working

Following Francis: reversing performance in the NHS from targets to teams

Between 400 and 1200 people died unnecessarily in just four years at the Mid Staffordshire National Health Service Foundation Trust in the UK. Two inquiries carried out by Robert Francis QC, the second one producing a report of 1700 pages with 290 recommendations, have proposed a range of changes to the regulatory framework and legal duties placed on hospitals throughout England. It proposes better warning signals, greater accountability of senior managers and NHS staff facing possible criminal prosecution for non-reporting of clinical error. The report also identifies that the model of performance management dominant in the NHS compounded the already delicate balance between available resources and quality of care such that, “quality wasn’t the organising principle of the NHS, it wasn’t the thing that was driving us during that period”(David Nicholson, NHS Chief Executive. Evidence 28th September 2011, Francis Report).Virtually no organisation emerges from the inquiry with credit except the local campaigns set up by the relatives of the victims.The NHS is now facing a major culture change in relation to performance management if it is to improve outcomes for patients

Representations of world coordinates in FITS

The initial descriptions of the FITS format provided a simplified method for describing the physical coordinate values of the image pixels, but deliberately did not specify any of the detailed conventions required to convey the complexities of actual image coordinates. Building on conventions in wide use within astronomy, this paper proposes general extensions to the original methods for describing the world coordinates of FITS data. In subsequent papers, we apply these general conventions to the methods by which spherical coordinates may be projected onto a two-dimensional plane and to frequency/wavelength/velocity coordinates.Comment: 15 Pages, 1 figure, LaTex with Astronomy & Astrophysics macro package, submitted to A&A, related papers at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~egreise

Representations of celestial coordinates in FITS

In Paper I, Greisen & Calabretta (2002) describe a generalized method for assigning physical coordinates to FITS image pixels. This paper implements this method for all spherical map projections likely to be of interest in astronomy. The new methods encompass existing informal FITS spherical coordinate conventions and translations from them are described. Detailed examples of header interpretation and construction are given.Comment: Consequent to Paper I: "Representations of world coordinates in FITS". 45 pages, 38 figures, 13 tables, aa macros v5.2 (2002/Jun). Both papers submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics (2002/07/19). Replaced to try to get figure and table placement right (no textual changes

Chern-Simons theory and three-dimensional surfaces

There are two natural Chern-Simons theories associated with the embedding of a three-dimensional surface in Euclidean space; one is constructed using the induced metric connection -- it involves only the intrinsic geometry, the other is extrinsic and uses the connection associated with the gauging of normal rotations. As such, the two theories appear to describe very different aspects of the surface geometry. Remarkably, at a classical level, they are equivalent. In particular, it will be shown that their stress tensors differ only by a null contribution. Their Euler-Lagrange equations provide identical constraints on the normal curvature. A new identity for the Cotton tensor is associated with the triviality of the Chern-Simons theory for embedded hypersurfaces implied by this equivalence. The corresponding null surface stress capturing this information will be constructed explicitly.Comment: 10 pages, unnecessary details removed, typos fixed, references adde

Compact Radio Sources within 30" of Sgr A*: Proper Motions, Stellar Winds and the Accretion Rate onto Sgr A*

Recent broad-band 34 and 44 GHz radio continuum observations of the Galactic center have revealed 41 massive stars identified with near-IR counterparts, as well as 44 proplyd candidates within 30" of Sgr A*. Radio observations obtained in 2011 and 2014 have been used to derive proper motions of eight young stars near Sgr A*. The accuracy of proper motion estimates based on near-IR observations by Lu et al. and Paumard et al. have been investigated by using their proper motions to predict the 2014 epoch positions of near-IR stars and comparing the predicted positions with those of radio counterparts in the 2014 radio observations. Predicted positions from Lu et al. show an rms scatter of 6 mas relative to the radio positions, while those from Paumard et al. show rms residuals of 20 mas, which is mainly due to uncertainties in the IR-based proper motions. Under the assumption of homogeneous ionized winds, we also determine the mass-loss rates of 11 radio stars, finding rates that are on average $\sim$2 times smaller than those determined from model atmosphere calculations and near-IR data. Clumpiness of ionized winds would reduce the mass loss rate of WR and O stars by additional factors of 3 and 10, respectively. One important implication of this is a reduction in the expected mass accretion rate onto Sgr A* from stellar winds by nearly an order of magnitude to a value of few$\times10^{-7}$ \msol\ yr$^{-1}$. Finally, we present the positions of 318 compact 34.5 GHz radio sources within 30\arcs\ of Sgr A*. At least 45 of these have stellar counterparts in the near-IR $K_s$ (2.18 $\mu$m) and $L'$ (3.8$\mu$m) bands.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures, ApJ (in press

Plate-impact loading of cellular structures formed by selective laser melting

Porous materials are of great interest because of improved energy absorption over their solid counterparts. Their properties, however, have been difficult to optimize. Additive manufacturing has emerged as a potential technique to closely define the structure and properties of porous components, i.e. density, strut width and pore size; however, the behaviour of these materials at very high impact energies remains largely unexplored. We describe an initial study of the dynamic compression response of lattice materials fabricated through additive manufacturing. Lattices consisting of an array of intersecting stainless steel rods were fabricated into discs using selective laser melting. The resulting discs were impacted against solid stainless steel targets at velocities ranging from 300 to 700 m s-1 using a gas gun. Continuum CTH simulations were performed to identify key features in the measured wave profiles, while 3D simulations, in which the individual cells were modelled, revealed details of microscale deformation during collapse of the lattice structure. The validated computer models have been used to provide an understanding of the deformation processes in the cellular samples. The study supports the optimization of cellular structures for application as energy absorbers. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd

Submillimeter satellite radiometer Final engineering report

All solid-state superheterodyne Dicke radiometer for submillimeter wavelength