Power in Coalition: Strategies for Strong Unions and Social Change

{Excerpt} For decades, unions around the world, like the teachers\u27 union in Australia, have been struggling. Across advanced English-speaking economies, we have seen the rising power of capital and its increasing influence over government. This has created a hostile environment for unions, characterized by aggressive employers, unfriendly governments, and declining union membership. Unions have been forced to reevaluate their role and objectives. Debates have considered how unions could advance the conditions of their members and whether achieving this goal also requires a more fundamental confrontation with the political and economic logic that underpins this crisis for unions (Hyman 2007). This book is about the promise of successful coalitions. I consider why coalitions have re-surfaced as a strategy and the various ways in which coalitions can successfully achieve social change and rebuild the organizational strength of civil society. To do this, I identify three elements of coalitions using case studies based in Australia, the United States, and Canada. I draw out key principles about how to build strong coalitions and the circumstances under which coalitions succeed. I apply these lessons directly to unions, distinguishing the ways in which coalitions support union revitalization and enable unions to win on issues and build political agendas that they have struggled with on their own

Institutional Challenges in the Data Decade

Throughout the year, the DCC stages regional data management roadshows to present best practice and showcase new tools and resources. This article reports on the second roadshow, organised in conjunction with the White Rose University Consortium and held on 1-3 March 2011 at the University of Sheffield. The goal for Day 1 was to describe the emerging trends and challenges associated with research data management and their potential impact on higher education institutions, and to introduce the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and its role in supporting research data management. This was achieved through a substantial morning presentation followed by an afternoon of illustrative case studies at both disciplinary and institutional levels, highlighting different models, approaches and working practice. Day 2 was aimed at those in senior management roles and looked at strategic and policy implementation objectives. The Day 3 workshop explored data management requirements from the perspective of the institution and the main UK funding bodies, the different roles and responsibilities involved in effective data management and provided an introduction to data management planning. The portfolio of DCC resources, tools and services was explored in greater detail. The roadshow provided delegates with advice and guidance to support institutional Research Data Management and has helped to facilitate regional networking and the exchange of skills and experience

Cultural Identity Change and the Repatriation of Taiwanese Academic Sojourners in the UK

Living and working in close proximity to international academic sojourners, we all will instinctively, or indeed empirically, be conscious that the sojourn is, for many, a time of challenge to existing cultural schemata which frequently results in changes in construal of the self and the wider community. Some sojourners seem to have an inclination to adopt certain cultural scripts of the host country while others seem to become more affirmed in their own cultural backgrounds. The important implications of such change on the repatriation experience and ultimately the wider home community seem to be largely underrepresented in the literature. It is the aim of this study therefore to extend the existing body of knowledge in this regard taking the contextual focus of the Taiwanese academic sojourner returning from postgraduate study in the UK. This paper discusses one of the key emergent themes of a recent doctoral study which takes Sussman’s (2000) Cultural Identity Model of Cultural Transitions as a theoretical starting point from which to investigate manifestations of cultural identity change in Taiwanese postgraduate students in the UK. The implications of these changes are then considered through detailed qualitative analysis of the repatriation experiences of the same students. The findings are the result of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 35 repatriated Taiwanese academic sojourners and reveal most significantly a close correlation between the quality and quantity of contact with the host culture and the affective nature of the repatriation experience. Implications of these findings for UK higher educational institutions will be opened up to the audience for debate following the presentation

Uraemic toxins and new methods to control their accumulation : game changers for the concept of dialysis adequacy

The current concept of an adequate dialysis based only on the dialysis process itself is rather limited. We now have considerable knowledge of uraemic toxicity and improved tools for limiting uraemic toxin accumulation. It is time to make use of these. A broader concept of adequacy that focusses on uraemic toxicity is required. As discussed in the present review, adequacy could be achieved by many different methods in combination with, or instead of, dialysis. These include preservation of renal function, dietary intake, reducing uraemic toxin generation rate and intestinal absorption, isolated ultrafiltration and extracorporeal adsorption of key uraemic toxins. A better measure of the quality of dialysis treatment would quantify the uraemic state in the patient using levels of a panel of key uraemic toxins. Treatment would focus on controlling uraemic toxicity while reducing harm or inconvenience to the patient. Delivering more dialysis might not be the best way to achieve this

A framework to create customised LHC analyses within CheckMATE

Checkmate is a framework that allows the user to conveniently test simulated BSM physics events against current LHC data in order to derive exclusion limits. For this purpose, the data runs through a detector simulation and is then processed by a user chosen number of experimental analyses. These analyses are all defined by signal regions that can be compared to the experimental data with a multitude of statistical tools. Due to the large and continuously growing number of experimental analyses available, users may quickly find themselves in the situation that the study they are particularly interested in has not (yet) been implemented officially into the Checkmate framework. However, the code includes a rather simple framework to allow users to add new analyses on their own. This document serves as a guide to this. In addition, Checkmate serves as a powerful tool for testing and implementing new search strategies. To aid this process, many tools are included to allow a rapid prototyping of new analyses.Comment: 32 pages; V3: Fixed typos, additional comments, updated references, version submitted to CP

Winning on our Issues with Power

Social movement organisations need to have a pragmatic understanding of our current weaknesses and challenge ourselves to be much more adventurous for how to build social power and transformative change. This article considers three core weaknesses of our activist organisations, including how our issue agenda is often reactive, our disconnection from place and our poor track record on collaboration. It then suggests that the hope for stronger social change lies with a proactive issue agenda, strong reciprocal coalitions and the ability to move campaigns at multiple scales (locally, regionally, nationally, globally). The article includes a variety of examples that suggest how this stronger kind of organising is possible

0 is the magic number: why small numbers matter just as much as large ones when we talk about altmetrics

The problem many detractors have with altmetrics is that it is heavily focused on numbers that may or may not be meaningful. Andy Tattersall sees this as a legitimate concern but argues researchers should consider further what can be gained from these scores, or indeed, the lack of one. In a world increasingly governed by impact and the dissemination of your research, the straight flat zero indicates an opportunity and a possible need to communicate your work

Book review: communicating your research with social media: a practical guide to using blogs, podcasts, data visualisations and video by Amy Mollett, Cheryl Brumley, Chris Gilson and Sierra Williams

With Communicating Your Research with Social Media: A Practical Guide to Using Blogs, Podcasts, Data Visualisations and Video, authors Amy Mollett, Cheryl Brumley, Chris Gilson and Sierra Williams offer a definitive guide to communicating research using different social media tools. Reflecting on the utility of social media to all facets of the research landscape and lifecycle, this is a valuable book that will encourage readers to find the right platform for their voice, writes Andy Tattersall

Comment, discuss, review: An essential guide to post-publication review sites.

Andy Tattersall continues his discussion of post-publication peer review and provides an overview of the main tools and sites, from publisher platforms to independent forums, offering some kind of comment, discussion or review system for scholarly content