The fluctuating record of economic regeneration in England's second-order city regions, 1984-2007

This study examines how far and in what way ‘Our cities are back’, as claimed by England’s Core Cities Group. It focuses on 1984-2007 employment changes for the eight Core Cities and their city regions: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. City regions are defined on a consistent functional basis and allowance is made for discontinuities in the jobs time-series. These provincial city regions are found to have suffered relatively less than London in the early 1990s recession, but then recovered more slowly to achieve their greatest rates of growth in 1998- 2002 and only then did the Core Cities outpace the rest of their city regions. Employment growth slowed after this, though their population recovery continued

Great Britain's second-order city regions in recessions, 1978-2010

While it is now accepted that the 2008-09 recession accentuated regional differences in Britain, it is more difficult to identify the role of major cities, especially over a longer time scale. Using previously established methods focussed on employment, this paper assesses the record of nine city regions in the 2008-09 recession, both in its own right and in comparison with the previous two recessions. The 2008-09 recession is found to have impacted the nine city regions less than the previous ones in absolute terms but not in relative terms compared with the London city region or the rest of Britain. Over the whole period from 1978, the paper has found the city regions to be fairly tightly in the grip of national cyclical trends of recession and recovery, but generally performing less resiliently than Britain as a whole. In comparison, London showed appreciably more cyclical behaviour between 1989 and 2002 than at other times, with the most remarkable recovery from recession in this period. The public sector helped the performance of second-order city regions from 1997 to 2010, including the peak of growth rates in city regions and their cores in 1998-2002, but its employment reductions will dominate the prospects for provincial cities for several years to come

The challenge of managing informally

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the orientations of line managers in handling workplace conflict. In particular it examines the tension between the traditional preference of frontline managers for informal approaches and the perceived certainty of written disputes procedures. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws upon findings from 12 organisational case studies, focusing on interviews conducted with HR and managers. Findings – As line managers undertake more responsibility for people management, their preferences for informal approaches to workplace issues appears to be being replaced by a more rigid adherence to policy and procedure. This is largely driven by a lack of confidence and expertise in conflict management and a fear of the repercussions (both legal and organisational) of mishandling difficult issues. Written procedure therefore provides managers with both a systematic guide but also a protective shield against criticism and litigation. Research limitations/implications – It is not possible to generalise from a limited sample, therefore this suggested change requires further exploration to assess whether it has been evidenced in organisations more widely. Practical implications – For practitioners this research highlights the critical requirement for organisations to develop key skills among line managers to enable them to respond effectively to problems at an early stage. Social implications – For policy-makers, the barriers to line managers implementing informal resolution should be considered. Originality/value – This paper enriches understanding of line managers’ current role in people management and the challenges they face in doing so informally

Bulk Fields and Supersymmetry in a Slice of AdS

Five-dimensional models where the bulk is a slice of AdS have the virtue of solving the hierarchy problem. The electroweak scale is generated by a ``warp'' factor of the induced metric on the brane where the standard model fields live. However, it is not necessary to confine the standard model fields on the brane and we analyze the possibility of having the fields actually living in the slice of AdS. Specifically, we study the behaviour of fermions, gauge bosons and scalars in this geometry and their implications on electroweak physics. These scenarios can provide an explanation of the fermion mass hierarchy by warp factors. We also consider the case of supersymmetry in the bulk, and analyze the conditions on the mass spectrum. Finally, a model is proposed where the warp factor generates a small (TeV) supersymmetry-breaking scale, with the gauge interactions mediating the breaking to the scalar sector.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures, LaTe

Comparison of Radiation Transport Codes, HZETRN, HETC and FLUKA, Using the 1956 Webber SPE Spectrum

Protection of astronauts and instrumentation from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar particle events (SPE) in the harsh environment of space is of prime importance in the design of personal shielding, spacec raft, and mission planning. Early entry of radiation constraints into the design process enables optimal shielding strategies, but demands efficient and accurate tools that can be used by design engineers in every phase of an evolving space project. The radiation transport code , HZETRN, is an efficient tool for analyzing the shielding effectiveness of materials exposed to space radiation. In this paper, HZETRN is compared to the Monte Carlo codes HETC-HEDS and FLUKA, for a shield/target configuration comprised of a 20 g/sq cm Aluminum slab in front of a 30 g/cm^2 slab of water exposed to the February 1956 SPE, as mode led by the Webber spectrum. Neutron and proton fluence spectra, as well as dose and dose equivalent values, are compared at various depths in the water target. This study shows that there are many regions where HZETRN agrees with both HETC-HEDS and FLUKA for this shield/target configuration and the SPE environment. However, there are also regions where there are appreciable differences between the three computer c odes

Atypical audiovisual speech integration in infants at risk for autism

The language difficulties often seen in individuals with autism might stem from an inability to integrate audiovisual information, a skill important for language development. We investigated whether 9-month-old siblings of older children with autism, who are at an increased risk of developing autism, are able to integrate audiovisual speech cues. We used an eye-tracker to record where infants looked when shown a screen displaying two faces of the same model, where one face is articulating/ba/and the other/ga/, with one face congruent with the syllable sound being presented simultaneously, the other face incongruent. This method was successful in showing that infants at low risk can integrate audiovisual speech: they looked for the same amount of time at the mouths in both the fusible visual/ga/− audio/ba/and the congruent visual/ba/− audio/ba/displays, indicating that the auditory and visual streams fuse into a McGurk-type of syllabic percept in the incongruent condition. It also showed that low-risk infants could perceive a mismatch between auditory and visual cues: they looked longer at the mouth in the mismatched, non-fusible visual/ba/− audio/ga/display compared with the congruent visual/ga/− audio/ga/display, demonstrating that they perceive an uncommon, and therefore interesting, speech-like percept when looking at the incongruent mouth (repeated ANOVA: displays x fusion/mismatch conditions interaction: F(1,16) = 17.153, p = 0.001). The looking behaviour of high-risk infants did not differ according to the type of display, suggesting difficulties in matching auditory and visual information (repeated ANOVA, displays x conditions interaction: F(1,25) = 0.09, p = 0.767), in contrast to low-risk infants (repeated ANOVA: displays x conditions x low/high-risk groups interaction: F(1,41) = 4.466, p = 0.041). In some cases this reduced ability might lead to the poor communication skills characteristic of autism

Survival Strategies and Power amongst the Poorest in a West Bengal Village

SUMMARY Focusing on ‘people's history’ challenges the assumption that poor people are passive, followers, or apolitical, by identifying ways in which poor people are makers of their own histories. By adapting a ‘people's history’ approach to the geographical study of one village in West Bengal, and concentrating particularly on survival strategies used by poorest women and children, this article shows that the rural poorest are active in an informal economy through which they operate much of their business, and that they have clear views on the characteristics of rich people. Survival strategies considered include the use of common property resources; changes in consumption patterns; share?rearing of livestock; and mutual support networks. Each is put in the context of a wider literature, and policy implications evaluated to determine the possibility of external support for such indigenous coping mechanisms. Resumé Stratégies de survie et pouvoir parmi les catégories sociales les plus démunies du Bengale de l'Ouest Prendre comme point de départ ‘l'histoire individuelle’ remet en question l'hypothèse que les pauvres sont passifs, soumis et sans conviction politique, lorsque l'on identifie les différentes manières dont ils ont construit leur propre destin. Par l'adaptation de l'approche qui prend en considération les données d'une ‘histoire personnelle’, et son utilisation dans l'analyse géographique d'un village du Bengale de l'Ouest qui se concentre tout particulièrement sur les stratégies développées par les femmes et les enfants les plus pauvres afin de survivre, cet article démontre que les pauvres dans l'environment rural sont actifs dans le secteur informal de l'économie dans lequel ils conduisent la plupart de leurs affaires, et qu'ils ont une perspective claire sur les caractéristiques des gens riches. Les stratégies de survie analysées comprennent l'exploitation des ressources des propriétés communales, les changements dans les rythmes de consommation, le partage des tâches dans le domaine de l'élevage, et des réseaux de support mutuel. Chacune de ces stratégies présentée dans le contexte d'une littérature plus élaborée, et dans celui des conséquences des mesures prises et réalisées, est évaluée de manière à déterminer les possibilités d'une aide externe à chacun de ces mécanismes de défense utilisés. Resumen Estrategias de sobrevivencia y poder entre los más pobres en una aldea de Bengala Occidental El enfoque “historia de la gente” desafía el supuesto de que los despodeídos son pasivos, sumisos y apolíticos, mediante la identificación de vías a través de las cuales estas personas hacen su propia historia. Este artículo adapta el enfoque “historia de la gente” a un estudio geográfico de una aldea de Bengala occidental, concentrándose especialmente en las estrategias de sobrevivencia usadas por mujeres y niños desposeídos demostrando que en el área rural los más pobres son activos en una economía informal a través de la cual operan la mayor parte de sus quehaceres y que tienen visiones claras sobre las características de los ricos. Las estrategias de sobrevivencia consideradas incluyen el uso de racursos de propiedad comunitaria, cambios en los patrones de consumo, crianza del ganado compartida y redes mutuales de apoyo. Cada una es colocada en el contexto de una literatura amplia e implicaciones políticas evaluadas para determinar la posibilidad de obtener apoyo externo para estos mecanismos de lucha nativos

Basic Atomic Physics

Contains reports on five research projects.National Science Foundation Grant PHY 96-024740National Science Foundation Grant PHY 92-21489U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Contract N00014-96-1-0484Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAHO4-95-1-0038National Science Foundation Grant PHY95-14795U.S. Army Research Office Contract DAAHO4-94-G-0170U.S. Army Research Office Contract DAAG55-97-1-0236U.S. Army Research Office Contract DAAH04-95-1-0533U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Contract N00014-96-1-0432National Science Foundation Contract PHY92-22768David and Lucile Packard Foundation Grant 96-5158National Science Foundation Grant PHY 95-01984U.S. Army Research OfficeU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Contract N00014-96-1-0485AASERT N00014-94-1-080