The objectness of everyday life: disburdenment or engagement?

The article grew out of a conference paper, ‘The objectness of everyday life: engagement and disburdenment’, Material Geographies, UCL, September 2002. An expanded version of the paper was included in a special themed section of an issue of Geoforum. The paper intervenes into contemporary philosophical scholarship on the nature of use-value, usability, design and ethics. The article has been directly engaged with in an academic journal; Christensen, Carleton B. (2005) ‘The Material Basis of Everyday Rationality: transformation by design or education?’, Design Philosophy Papers No.4,)

The employee as 'Dish of the Day’:human resource management and the ethics of consumption

This article examines the ethical implications of the growing integration of consumption into the heart of the employment relationship. Human resource management (HRM) practices increasingly draw upon the values and practices of consumption, constructing employees as the ‘consumers’ of ‘cafeteria-style’ benefits and development opportunities. However, at the same time employees are expected to market themselves as items to be consumed on a corporate menu. In relation to this simultaneous position of consumer/consumed, the employee is expected to actively engage in the commodification of themselves, performing an appropriate organizational identity as a necessary part of being a successful employee. This article argues that the relationship between HRM and the simultaneously consuming/consumed employee affects the conditions of possibility for ethical relations within organizational life. It is argued that the underlying ‘ethos’ for the integration of consumption values into HRM practices encourages a self-reflecting, self-absorbed subject, drawing upon a narrow view of individualised autonomy and choice. Referring to Levinas’ perspective that the primary ethical relation is that of responsibility and openness to the Other, it is concluded that these HRM practices affect the possibility for ethical being

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

New data of eskolaite, Zn-bearing chromite, willyamite and ullmannite from the Outokumpu mine, eastern Finland

Two massive sulphide ore samples from the Outokumpu mine, eastern Finland, were studied by ore microscopy and electron microprobe analysis. The main minerals are pyrrhotite, pentlandite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite with accessory galena and molybdenite. The matrix contains euhedral crystals of homogeneous or zoned eskolaite with variation of Cr and Al. Zn–bearing-chromite, occuring in sulphide or silicate matrix, is mainly zoned with a clear variation between Fe and Mg+Zn and between Cr and Al. Very rare are willyamite and ullmannite as inclusions in sulphides. Previously unpublished electron microprobe analyses are presented of eskolaite, Zn-chromite, willyamite and ullmannite. The crystallisation equilibrium temperatures for eskolaite are estimated for the dark zones as ca. 600°C and for the light zones ca. 400°C. The chromite grains are zoned with high Zn contents derived from the Zn-bearing sulphide ore during cooling of the sulphides and metamorphism. The occurrence of willyamite and ullmannite suggests their crystallization below 550°C