‘You see similarities more than differences after a while’. Communities of Practice in European industrial relations. The case of the hospital European Sectoral Social Dialogue

This article looks at the hospital European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee (SSDC) through a Community of Practice (CoP) theoretical lens. Based on a 2-year project, qualitative in-depth interviews at the European level and in five Member states, and participant observation of the hospital SSDC, we propose a shift from traditional institutional and resource-based accounts and provide a learning and knowledge-focused understanding of this specific area of European industrial relations. Interpreting the SSDCs as a CoP sheds new light on the role of power relations, participation and informal activities among members and on how they work together; this, we find, can alert those interested in more effective functioning of the European Sectoral Social Dialogue on how to strengthen this supra-national level of industrial relations

Institutions or resources and capabilities? Explaining engagement in European sectoral social dialogue

We analyse social partner engagement in European sectoral social dialogue, testing two prominent theories to disentangle sector and country dynamics: institutional and resources and capabilities theories. While institutional theory accounted for certain social partner preferences, resources and capability theory proved stronger in predicting participation and provided insight into regulatory preferences. We conclude that resources and capability theory better explains our case, associating it with weaknesses of transnational governance. Specifically, limited incentives for participation mean that social partners with fewer resources forego participation, entailing pre-eminence of social partners with greater resources and hindering outcomes reflecting national institutional influences

Opening the black box: actors and interactions shaping European sectoral social dialogue

This article highlights the importance of organizational resources and individual capabilities for interactions and relationships among social partners in European sectoral social dialogue committees (SSDCs). We use an actor-centred approach to investigate work programme setting in the hospital and metalworking SSDCs. Our research reveals differences in how European social partner organizations coordinate and integrate members in SSDCs. In hospital, European Union (EU)-social partners build bridges that span otherwise separate actors or groups. The findings suggest that the absence of bridging efforts can lead to the dominance of a few actors. In metalworking, small cohesive groups are more effective in forming close networks and determining work programmes. While work programmes in hospital represent issues which are on national agendas, in metalworking, they focus mainly on EU policy areas

U-duality covariant membranes

We outline a formulation of membrane dynamics in D=8 which is fully covariant under the U-duality group SL(2,Z) x SL(3,Z), and encodes all interactions to fields in the eight-dimensional supergravity, which is constructed through Kaluza-Klein reduction on T^3. Among the membrane degrees of freedom is an SL(2,R) doublet of world-volume 2-form potentials, whose quantised electric fluxes determine the membrane charges, and are conjectured to provide an interpretation of the variables occurring in the minimal representation of E_{6(6)} which appears in the context of automorphic membranes. We solve the relevant equations for the action for a restricted class of supergravity backgrounds. Some comments are made on supersymmetry and lower dimensions.Comment: LaTeX, 21 pages. v2: Minor changes in text, correction of a sign. v3: some changes in text, a sign convention changed; version to appear in JHE

Ferromagnetic Domain Wall and Primeval Magnetic Field

We show that coherent magnetic field is generated spontaneously when a large domain wall is created in the early universe. It is caused by two dimensional massless fermions bounded to the domain wall soliton. We point out that the magnetic field is a candidate of primordial magnetic field.Comment: zero point energy missed in previous version is include

Near-infrared evolution of the equatorial ring of SN 1987A

We use adaptive-optics imaging and integral field spectroscopy from the Very Large Telescope, together with images from the \emph{Hubble Space Telescope}, to study the near-infrared (NIR) evolution of the equatorial ring (ER) of SN~1987A. We study the NIR line and continuum flux and morphology over time in order to lay the groundwork for \emph{James Webb Space Telescope} observations of the system. We also study the differences in the interacting ring structure and flux between optical, NIR and other wavelengths, and between line and continuum emission, to constrain the underlying physical processes. Mostly the evolution is similar in the NIR and optical. The morphology of the ER has been skewed toward the west side (with roughly 2/3 of the NIR emission originating there) since around 2010. A steady decline in the ER flux, broadly similar to the MIR and the optical, is ongoing since roughly this time as well. The expansion velocity of the ER hotspots in the NIR is fully consistent with the optical. However, continuum emission forms roughly 70 per cent of the NIR luminosity, and is relatively stronger outside the hotspot-defined extent of the ER than the optical emission or NIR line emission since 2012--2013, suggesting a faster-expanding continuum component. We find that this outer NIR emission can have a significant synchrotron contribution. Even if emission from hot ($\sim$2000~K) dust is dominant within the ER, the mass of this dust must be vanishingly small (a few $\times10^{-12}$~M$_\odot$) compared to the total dust mass in the ER ($\gtrsim10^{-5}$~M$_\odot$) to account for the observed $HKs$ flux. The NIR continuum emission, however, expands slower than the more diffuse 180-K dust emission that dominates in the MIR, indicating a different source, and the same hot dust component cannot account for the $J$-band emission.Comment: 17 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Quantitative characterization of machining-induced white layers in Ti–6Al–4V

Machining-induced white layers can affect the functional performance of engineered components, due to the resulting mechanical and microstructural properties. Destructive inspection methods such as cross-sectional microscopy are typically used to identify white layers, however, these methods are inherently costly and time-consuming. It is, therefore, desirable to detect this anomalous surface feature using non-destructive methods which requires improved knowledge around the characteristics of white layers. The present paper reports on the characterization of white layers formed during machining of Ti–6Al–4V, to aid future development of a reliable non-destructive assessment method. The microstructure of the material in the white layer was found to have a basal α-hexagonal close packed texture and there was no evidence of an α→β phase transformation during white layer formation. The white layer has a highly refined grain structure with an increased nanohardness of up to 15% compared with the bulk material. It is proposed that white layers in Ti–6Al–4V are formed by continuous dynamic recrystallization driven by severe plastic deformation during machining. According to the measured micro-mechanical properties of the white layer, suitable non-destructive testing methods are suggested for the detection of this surface feature