Shop-floor bargaining and the struggle for job control in the British automobile and aerospace industries 1950-1982

In the UK automobile and aerospace industries, the struggle over job control and rewards for labour expended in the production process was particularly intense in the period of steady economic growth, high and stable employment, and low inflation, following the Second World War. This struggle reached its zenith during a phase of increasing output in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the late 1960s, however, as wages and unemployment began to rise and the rate of growth slowed there was a discernible shift in management industrial relations strategy and efforts by government to curb the authority and influence of shop-stewards. Despite disparities both between and within these respective industries, particularly the higher skill levels required by the aerospace sector, common experiences of the transformation of labour conditions of work are noticeable. In mapping some key historical struggles of automobile and aerospace workers against management forms of authority and control, it should be possible to distinguish the critical dynamics prevalent in both industries. Knowledge of the trajectory of labour relations and the pattern and character of conflict is critical to understanding and accounting for continuity and change in the social relations of production

Collaborative Collective Algorithms to Coordinate UGVs

Sentel/Brilliant Innovations has developed autonomous UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles) capable of generating a map of an unknown location through exploration using local software and the power of Google Tango technology. This project was tasked with developing an efficient and capable map-stitching solution allowing multiple UGVs to coordinate their movements and share information in order to greatly improve the speed at which these drones can be used to generate maps. The solution utilizes the processing power of a Raspberry Pi to pull maps from a Redis server and stitch them together. Once stitched, the maps are redistributed via the Redis server back through the network, providing every UGV the opportunity to obtain the global map. All of this stitching is performed on a single UGV, freeing the other drones to focus on generating and uploading their own unique maps to the server. The drones can use this new information to better inform their next move to prevent multiple drones from generating a map of the same location. In the future, Sentel/Brilliant Innovations hopes to take this technology and attach more advanced sensors to the drones, allowing them to add greater detail of the environment to the map rather than simply drawing boundaries. These drones have many potential applications, such as search and rescue, seeking out potential hazards, and intelligence for military and civil use.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1187/thumbnail.jp

One Full Bite at the Apple: Defining Competent Counsel in Texas Capital Post-conviction Review

This Comment argues that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was correct in refusing to engraft a constitutional standard of effective assistance of counsel to post-conviction habeas corpus review. In reaching the appropriate decision, however, the court failed to provide any guiding standards of competence for appointed capital habeas attorneys. Specifically, the court did not elaborate on either the type or amount of qualifications, experience, or ability necessary for a finding of attorney competence. The resulting inadequate definition of competency for appointed post-conviction counsel in death penalty cases leaves habeas petitioners without a remedy when statutorily mandated, post-conviction review is nullified by grossly deficient, appointed counsel. The solution lies in providing a standard of competence through a statutory amendment because the specification of binding attorney qualifications will ensure that capital petitioners receive their one full bite at the habeas apple. Part II of this Comment provides background information on postconviction state habeas corpus review by illustrating the function of habeas writs, outlining Texas\u27s statutory writ provisions, and describing the current crisis in post-conviction representation. Part III analyzes the argument for applying Sixth Amendment effective assistance of counsel to a statutory grant of habeas counsel, explaining that even though the Sixth Amendment does not apply to post-conviction proceedings, petitioners attempt to claim the right to effective assistance under the statutory grant of counsel in article 11.071. Part IV explains how the doctrines of finality and abuse of the writ converge to prohibit application of the constitutional effectiveness standard to post-conviction review. Part V concludes that the appropriate solution to the crisis in post-conviction representation lies in the establishment of qualification standards for the appointment of post-conviction counsel, which the Texas Legislature should provide via an amendment to article 11.071 itself

Fragment properties at the catastrophic disruption threshold: The effect of the parent body's internal structure

Numerical simulations of asteroid break-ups, including both the fragmentation of the parent body and the gravitational interactions between the fragments, have allowed us to reproduce successfully the main properties of asteroid families formed in different regimes of impact energy, starting from a non-porous parent body. In this paper, using the same approach, we concentrate on a single regime of impact energy, the so-called catastrophic threshold usually designated by Q*D, which results in the escape of half of the target's mass. Thanks to our recent implementation of a model of fragmentation of porous materials, we can characterize Q*D for both porous and non-porous targets with a wide range of diameters. We can then analyze the potential influence of porosity on the value of Q*D, and by computing the gravitational phase of the collision in the gravity regime, we can characterize the collisional outcome in terms of the fragment size and ejection speed distributions, which are the main outcome properties used by collisional models to study the evolutions of the different populations of small bodies. We also check the dependency of Q*D on the impact speed of the projectile. In the strength regime, which corresponds to target sizes below a few hundreds of meters, we find that porous targets are more difficult to disrupt than non-porous ones. In the gravity regime, the outcome is controlled purely by gravity and porosity in the case of porous targets. In the case of non-porous targets, the outcome also depends on strength. We then propose some power-law relationships between Q*D and both target's size and impact speed that can be used in collisional evolution models.Comment: 18 pages, 19 Figures. Accepted for publication in Icaru

Best value and workplace partnership in local government

Purpose – This paper explores employee experiences concerning job security/insecurity, workload, job satisfaction and employee involvement in the aftermath of Best Value reviews in a local authority. Design/methodology/approach – Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques employees’ experiences of Best Value reviews in a local authority are compared and contrasted with council staff employed elsewhere in the authority to establish the extent to which workplace partnership principles have taken hold under a Best Value regime. Findings – Little evidence of positive outcomes was found from partnership at work under a Best Value regime. The constraints imposed by central government, under which managers in the public sector operate, contributed significantly to partnership at work remaining little more than a hollow shell. Originality/value – This paper provides a recent in-depth case study of the experience of workplace partnership, which was developed not discrete from but as part of the Best Value modernisation programme in a local authority

Partnership with and without trade unions in the UK financial services: filling or fuelling the representation gap?

Partnership theory proposes that an appropriate integration of direct and indirect employee participation mutually benefits workers and company. This study explores the putative employee voice gains and the risks for union effectiveness by comparing employees' evaluation of partnership practices at two financial service companies with nonunion and union employee representation respectively

Partnership, high performance work systems and quality of working life

The paper measures the effects of workplace partnership and selected high performance work practices on four different dimensions of employee experience. Whilst the partnership– high performance work systems nexus seems to have little impact on employees’ job satisfaction or sense of attachment, it does, however, have a negative impact on both workplace stress and employee evaluations of union performance. The analysis thus questions common assumptions about the inevitability of ‘mutual gain’ and the necessity of employer/union partnership

Resolving the contributions of the membrane-bound and periplasmic nitrate reductase systems to nitric oxide and nitrous oxide production in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium

The production of cytotoxic nitric oxide (NO) and conversion into the neuropharmacological agent and potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) is linked with anoxic nitrate catabolism by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. Salmonella can synthesize two types of nitrate reductase: a membrane-bound form (Nar) and a periplasmic form (Nap). Nitrate catabolism was studied under nitrate-rich and nitrate-limited conditions in chemostat cultures following transition from oxic to anoxic conditions. Intracellular NO production was reported qualitatively by assessing transcription of the NO-regulated genes encoding flavohaemoglobin (Hmp), flavorubredoxin (NorV) and hybrid cluster protein (Hcp). A more quantitative analysis of the extent of NO formation was gained by measuring production of N2O, the end-product of anoxic NO-detoxification. Under nitrate-rich conditions, the nar, nap, hmp, norV and hcp genes were all induced following transition from the oxic to anoxic state, and 20% of nitrate consumed in steady-state was released as N2O when nitrite had accumulated to millimolar levels. The kinetics of nitrate consumption, nitrite accumulation and N2O production were similar to those of wild-type in nitrate-sufficient cultures of a nap mutant. In contrast, in a narG mutant, the steady-state rate of N2O production was ~30-fold lower than that of the wild-type. Under nitrate-limited conditions, nap, but not nar, was up-regulated following transition from oxic to anoxic metabolism and very little N2O production was observed. Thus a combination of nitrate-sufficiency, nitrite accumulation and an active Nar-type nitrate reductase leads to NO and thence N2O production, and this can account for up to 20% of the nitrate catabolized