The leadership component of Kelly’s Mobilisation Theory : contribution, tensions, limitations and further development

This reassessment of Kelly’s analysis of the relationship of activist leadership to collective action within the overall jigsaw of mobilisation theory draws on social movement literature, studies by industrial relations scholars utilising aspects of Kelly’s approach – including this author’s own work – and related research on union leadership within collective mobilisation. In the process, it identifies and celebrates how Kelly’s work, whilst contributing a distinct and substantive actor-related approach, recognised that leadership is one ingredient amongst other factors, including important structural opportunities and constraints. It considers three potential ambiguities/tensions within Kelly’s conceptualisation of leadership related to the social construction of workers’ interests, spontaneity of workers’ action and the ‘leader/follower’ interplay. The review also identifies two important limitations, related to the union member/bureaucracy dynamic and the role of left-wing political leadership, and concludes by signalling different forms of leadership relationships on which further refinement and development would be fruitful

Reasoning Under Uncertainty: Towards Collaborative Interactive Machine Learning

In this paper, we present the current state-of-the-art of decision making (DM) and machine learning (ML) and bridge the two research domains to create an integrated approach of complex problem solving based on human and computational agents. We present a novel classification of ML, emphasizing the human-in-the-loop in interactive ML (iML) and more specific on collaborative interactive ML (ciML), which we understand as a deep integrated version of iML, where humans and algorithms work hand in hand to solve complex problems. Both humans and computers have specific strengths and weaknesses and integrating humans into machine learning processes might be a very efficient way for tackling problems. This approach bears immense research potential for various domains, e.g., in health informatics or in industrial applications. We outline open questions and name future challenges that have to be addressed by the research community to enable the use of collaborative interactive machine learning for problem solving in a large scale

Obscured phylogeny and possible recombinational dormancy in Escherichia coli

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Escherichia coli </it>is one of the best studied organisms in all of biology, but its phylogenetic structure has been difficult to resolve with current data and analytical techniques. We analyzed single nucleotide polymorphisms in chromosomes of representative strains to reconstruct the topology of its emergence.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The phylogeny of <it>E. coli </it>varies according to the segment of chromosome analyzed. Recombination between extant <it>E. coli </it>groups is largely limited to only three intergroup pairings.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Segment-dependent phylogenies most likely are legacies of a complex recombination history. However, <it>E. coli </it>are now in an epoch in which they no longer broadly share DNA. Using the definition of species as organisms that freely exchange genetic material, this recombinational dormancy could reflect either the end of <it>E. coli </it>as a species, or herald the coalescence of <it>E. coli </it>groups into new species.</p

Identifying lineage effects when controlling for population structure improves power in bacterial association studies

Bacteria pose unique challenges for genome-wide association studies because of strong structuring into distinct strains and substantial linkage disequilibrium across the genome1,2. Although methods developed for human studies can correct for strain structure3,4, this risks considerable loss-of-power because genetic differences between strains often contribute substantial phenotypic variability5. Here, we propose a new method that captures lineage-level associations even when locus-specific associations cannot be fine-mapped. We demonstrate its ability to detect genes and genetic variants underlying resistance to 17 antimicrobials in 3,144 isolates from four taxonomically diverse clonal and recombining bacteria: Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Strong selection, recombination and penetrance confer high power to recover known antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and reveal a candidate association between the outer membrane porin nmpC and cefazolin resistance in E. coli. Hence, our method pinpoints locus-specific effects where possible and boosts power by detecting lineage-level differences when fine-mapping is intractable

The genome sequence of E. coli W (ATCC 9637): comparative genome analysis and an improved genome-scale reconstruction of E. coli

Background: Escherichia coli is a model prokaryote, an important pathogen, and a key organism for industrial biotechnology. E. coli W (ATCC 9637), one of four strains designated as safe for laboratory purposes, has not been sequenced. E. coli W is a fast-growing strain and is the only safe strain that can utilize sucrose as a carbon source. Lifecycle analysis has demonstrated that sucrose from sugarcane is a preferred carbon source for industrial bioprocesses

Recombination and Population Structure in Salmonella enterica

Salmonella enterica is a bacterial pathogen that causes enteric fever and gastroenteritis in humans and animals. Although its population structure was long described as clonal, based on high linkage disequilibrium between loci typed by enzyme electrophoresis, recent examination of gene sequences has revealed that recombination plays an important evolutionary role. We sequenced around 10% of the core genome of 114 isolates of enterica using a resequencing microarray. Application of two different analysis methods (Structure and ClonalFrame) to our genomic data allowed us to define five clear lineages within S. enterica subspecies enterica, one of which is five times older than the other four and two thirds of the age of the whole subspecies. We show that some of these lineages display more evidence of recombination than others. We also demonstrate that some level of sexual isolation exists between the lineages, so that recombination has occurred predominantly between members of the same lineage. This pattern of recombination is compatible with expectations from the previously described ecological structuring of the enterica population as well as mechanistic barriers to recombination observed in laboratory experiments. In spite of their relatively low level of genetic differentiation, these lineages might therefore represent incipient species

Competition and Prosociality: A Field Experiment in Ghana

Competitive bonuses are commonly used to promote higher productivity in the workplace. Yet, these types of incentives could have negative spillovers on coworkers' prosocial behavior in subsequent tasks. To investigate this question, we conduct a lab-in-the-eld experiment in Ghana. In a between-subjects design, participants complete a real-eort task under a competitive, threshold, or random payment while holding payment dierentials constant across treatments. Before and after, we measure prosociality through a public goods and a social value orientation game. Competition reduces prosociality when the dispersion of payments is high. However, when there is less at stake, competition does not aect prosociality

A study of genetic polymorphisms of milk β-lactoglobulin, α S1 -casein, β-casein, and κ-casein in five dairy breeds

Gene frequencies of the milk β-lactoglobulin, α S1 -casein, β-casein, and κ-casein loci have been estimated from 1663 cows of five dairy breeds. Departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was found only in the κ-casein system in Jerseys. However, chance alone could have accounted for this single significant finding. Results of pairwise comparisons among the five breeds of allele frequencies at these milk protein loci indicate that of the 40 possible tests, only six comparisons are not significant at the 5% probability level. It would appear that these breeds are characterizable in terms of the gene frequencies of these milk protein loci. Nonindependent assortment of genotypes among these milk protein loci was also studied. The closely linked casein loci were not independent in almost all the breeds where tests could be carried out. The only exception was between the α S1 -casein and κ-casein loci in Holsteins. β-Lactoglobulin was independent of the casein loci in all breeds except Brown Swiss, where it was found to be significantly associated with κ-casein. Close linkage is proposed as an important factor for maintaining the observed milk protein polymorphisms.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44176/1/10528_2004_Article_BF00485960.pd