Labour Migration, Employer Preferences and Symbolic Boundary Work

A critical stream of scholarship from North America and Europe, on employer preferences for low-wage labour migrants, suggest that the discourse of ‘the migrant work ethic’ works as a euphemism for the exploitability of this mobile, flexible and deferent workforce. In this article, we combine the literature on employer preference and the symbolic boundary approach, to tackle the question of how employer preference for the ‘migrant work ethic’ gains legitimacy. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within the fruit and vegetable industry in Norway, we detail how employers narrate the declining employability of the domestic working class, and how migrant workers ascend into the ‘good worker’ category. The recruitment and hiring decisions of the employers form part of a broader moral economy of establishing boundaries to the categories of desirable and undesirable workers. We document how employers establish legitimacy for their recruitment preferences through this boundary work. We argue that this boundary work gains its legitimacy as part of a wider moral economy of ‘employability.

Density-dependent selection and the maintenance of colour polymorphism in barn owls

The capacity of natural selection to generate adaptive changes is (according to the fundamental theorem of natural selection) proportional to the additive genetic variance in fitness. In spite of its importance for development of new adaptations to a changing environment, processes affecting the magnitude of the genetic variance in fitness-related traits are poorly understood. Here, we show that the red-white colour polymorphism in female barn owls is subject to density-dependent selection at the phenotypic and genotypic level. The diallelic melanocortin-1 receptor gene explained a large amount of the phenotypic variance in reddish coloration in the females (R2 ¼ 59:8%). Red individuals (RR genotype) were selected for at low densities, while white individuals (WW genotype) were favoured at high densities and were less sensitive to changes in density.We show that this density-dependent selection favours white individuals and predicts fixation of the white allele in this population at longer time scales without immigration or other selective forces. Still, fluctuating population density will cause selection to fluctuate and periodically favour red individuals. These results suggest how balancing selection caused by fluctuations in population density can be a general mechanism affecting the level of additive genetic variance in natural populations.Density-dependent selection and the maintenance of colour polymorphism in barn owlspublishedVersio

PIAS1 interacts with FLASH and enhances its co-activation of c-Myb

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>FLASH is a huge nuclear protein involved in various cellular functions such as apoptosis signalling, NF-κB activation, S-phase regulation, processing of histone pre-mRNAs, and co-regulation of transcription. Recently, we identified FLASH as a co-activator of the transcription factor c-Myb and found FLASH to be tightly associated with active transcription foci. As a huge multifunctional protein, FLASH is expected to have many interaction partners, some which may shed light on its function as a transcriptional regulator.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To find additional FLASH-associated proteins, we performed a yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screening with FLASH as bait and identified the SUMO E3 ligase PIAS1 as an interaction partner. The association appears to involve two distinct interaction surfaces in FLASH. We verified the interaction by Y2H-mating, GST pulldowns, co-IP and ChIP. FLASH and PIAS1 were found to co-localize in nuclear speckles. Functional assays revealed that PIAS1 enhances the intrinsic transcriptional activity of FLASH in a RING finger-dependent manner. Furthermore, PIAS1 also augments the specific activity of c-Myb, and cooperates with FLASH to further co-activate c-Myb. The three proteins, FLASH, PIAS1, and c-Myb, are all co-localized with active RNA polymerase II foci, resembling transcription factories.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that PIAS1 is a common partner for two cancer-related nuclear factors, c-Myb and FLASH. Our results point to a functional cooperation between FLASH and PIAS1 in the enhancement of c-Myb activity in active nuclear foci.</p

Aboveit. Your business, your future. New concept for website.

En nettside er for mange bedrifter deres ansikt utad, og en oppdatert og moderne nettside er viktig for å skape et godt førsteinntrykk. Denne oppgaven går ut på å lage et nytt konsept for nettsiden til vår oppdragsgiver Aboveit, som skal bidra til at de skiller seg ut fra sine konkurrenter. Gjennom innsamling av data fra oppdragsgiver, intervjuer og tett samarbeid med dem har vi gjennom prosjektet utviklet en høynivå prototype for et nytt konsept til nettside. Et stykke lengre ut i prosjektprosessen så vi derimot at vi hadde mulighet for å produsere en tilnærmet ferdig kodet løsning som potensielt kunne publiseres kort tid etter handover til oppdragsgiver. Det er i tillegg skrevet en digital markedsføringsplan tilhørende det nye konseptet

Controlling for P-value inflation in allele frequency change in experimental evolution and artificial selection experiments

acceptedVersio

Genetic architecture and heritability of early‐life telomere length in a wild passerine

Early-life telomere length (TL) is associated with fitness in a range of organisms. Little is known about the genetic basis of variation in TL in wild animal populations, but to understand the evolutionary and ecological significance of TL it is important to quantify the relative importance of genetic and environmental variation in TL. In this study, we measured TL in 2746 house sparrow nestlings sampled across 20 years and used an animal model to show that there is a small heritable component of early-life TL (h2maternal = 0.04). Variation in TL among individuals was mainly driven by environmental (annual) variance, but also brood and parental effects. Parent-offspring regressions showed a large maternal inheritance component in TL (h2maternal=0.44), but no paternal inheritance. We did not find evidence for a negative genetic correlation underlying the observed negative phenotypic correlation between TL and structural body size. Thus, TL may evolve independently of body size and the negative phenotypic correlation is likely to be caused by non-genetic environmental effects. We further used genome-wide association analysis to identify genomic regions associated with TL variation. We identified several putative genes underlying TL variation; these have been inferred to be involved in oxidative stress, cellular growth, skeletal development, cell differentiation and tumorigenesis in other species. Together, our results show that TL has a low heritability and is a polygenic trait strongly affected by environmental conditions in a free-living bird

Longitudinal telomere dynamics within natural lifespans of a wild bird

Telomeres, the nucleotide sequences that protect the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, shorten with each cell division and telomere loss may be influenced by environmental factors. Telomere length (TL) decreases with age in several species, but little is known about the sources of genetic and environmental variation in the change in TL (∆TL) in wild animals. In this study, we tracked changes in TL throughout the natural lifespan (from a few months to almost 9 years) of free-living house sparrows (Passer domesticus) in two different island populations. TL was measured in nestlings and subsequently up to four times during their lifetime. TL generally decreased with age (senescence), but we also observed instances of telomere lengthening within individuals. We found some evidence for selective disappearance of individuals with shorter telomeres through life. Early-life TL positively predicted later-life TL, but the within-individual repeatability in TL was low (9.2%). Using genetic pedigrees, we found a moderate heritability of ∆TL (h2 = 0.21), which was higher than the heritabilities of early-life TL (h2 = 0.14) and later-life TL measurements (h2 = 0.15). Cohort effects explained considerable proportions of variation in early-life TL (60%), later-life TL (53%), and ∆TL (37%), which suggests persistent impacts of the early-life environment on lifelong telomere dynamics. Individual changes in TL were independent of early-life TL. Finally, there was weak evidence for population differences in ∆TL that may be linked to ecological differences in habitat types. Combined, our results show that individual telomere biology is highly dynamic and influenced by both genetic and environmental variation in natural conditions

The influence of date and place of birth on youth player selection to a National Football Association elite development programme

Aim: This study sought to examine whether the place and date of birth of elite youth Irish footballers influences their selection onto the Football Association of Ireland's primary development pathway; 12 regional centres of excellences called the “Emerging Talent Programme” (ETP). The proposed hypothesis was that players born earlier in the year would be over-represented compared to those born later in their age band. A secondary hypothesis was that access to the ETP would be independent of place of birth. Methods: The dates and place of birth of all elite youth footballers (n = 1936) selected onto the ETP since its inception were examined. χ2 tests were used to establish if the dates of birth differed from the expected population distribution. Odds ratios were used to identify spatial variation in relation to place of birth and talent production. Results: The results showed that admission to the ETP is not independent of quarter of birth (P .05, χ2 = 256.817, w = .388). Place of birth analysis showed an unequal geographical distribution of players gaining selection onto the ETP. Selection onto the ETP was not independent of place of birth (P < .05, χ2 = 149.457, w = .278). Footballers developed in counties that had an ETP centre were almost 50% more likely to gain selection than those without a centre (OR 1.455, 95% CI 1.314 -1.612). Conclusion: The current programme demonstrates inequitable distribution of opportunities to access elite development pathways due to biases related to date and place of birth