Negotiating the politics of language

Since 2001, political concerns over social and ethnic cohesion have stimulated new debates over citizenship and belonging in the UK. A central feature of which has been a civic requirement of new citizens to learn English. Such a debate however coincides with concerns around in-migration in Wales, and the highly contested notion that non-Welsh speakers have a civic responsibility to learn Welsh. This article aims to explore the contradictions between these two cases via research with adult language learners in Wales — a group often ignored within literature on language, identity and citizenship. In analysing learners' discourses, the article identifies the ways in which learners come to terms with such notions of responsibility. However, the article argues that by positioning language learning in Wales in relation to the development of Welsh civic institutions, and by locating learning itself as a means of expressing such civic identification to place, so the demands for linguistic accommodation by monolingual English speakers may be increasingly articulated

Deploying business excellence – success factors for high performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of how organisations successfully deploy business excellence (BE) by comparing the tools and strategies implemented by organisations at different levels of BE maturity. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a combination of a questionnaire, discussion groups and interviews with respondents including private sector organisations across India, Japan, Republic of China, Singapore and Thailand. These countries were selected due to them being considered as having the most advanced BE organisations in Asia by the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) that commissioned the study. Once triangulated, the quantitative data were analysed through use of the IBM SPSS Statistical software package. Findings – The study has shown that on average, organisations with higher BE maturity outperform their less mature counterparts. The study also revealed that organisations with a high BE maturity were more likely to use specific tools and were more likely to use some of these tools more effectively. Finally, the study identified differences in strategic approaches to BE between organisations with high and low BE maturity. Research limitations/implications – Only five Asian countries were considered due to resource limitations. However, the study of 74 organisations represents one of the most comprehensive to date with 30 of these organisations being award winners. Practical implications – The findings offer guidance to those organisations wishing to progress from a low level of BE maturity to a more advanced level. The findings have already assisted the APO and its 20 member countries in the development and implementation of strategic interventions at a regional and national level. Originality/value – No other study in Asia has been conducted on such a large sample of BE-orientated organisations. The study was also unique in its focus on the tools and strategies that should be used for successful BE deployment. In addition, the study is one of only a few in Asia that has studied the results of BE on organisational performance

Quantum Darwinism in quantum Brownian motion: the vacuum as a witness

We study quantum Darwinism -- the redundant recording of information about a decohering system by its environment -- in zero-temperature quantum Brownian motion. An initially nonlocal quantum state leaves a record whose redundancy increases rapidly with its spatial extent. Significant delocalization (e.g., a Schroedinger's Cat state) causes high redundancy: many observers can measure the system's position without perturbing it. This explains the objective (i.e. classical) existence of einselected, decoherence-resistant pointer states of macroscopic objects.Comment: 5 page

Transnational mobility and cross-border family life cycles:A century of Welsh-Italian Migration

During the late nineteenth century, Italian immigrant settlement in Wales took the form of chain and clustered migration, based on origin-centred networks of extended family members. The original migrants’ reliance on transnational family support networks endured and evolved through descendant generations. Family formation and the progression of lifecycle care exchanges served as key drivers of transnationalism between Wales and Italy. Many families established catering businesses in Wales that relied on staff recruitment from kin in Italy. Migrants’ heritage and affective anchorage to Italy were maintained through ‘circular’ mobility premised on endogamy and shared language. In recent decades, despite a decline in endogamous marriage, transnational family interaction has continued on the basis of the ease of European Union cross-border mobility. Changing modes and motives for cyclical and return migration encompass new forms of marriage, professional and retirement migration. Based on etnographic research with three generations of Italian migrants in Wales, this article explores the relation between family social networks and local attachment in supporting transnational practices, positive integration and heritage maintainance, tracing the cultural and social change in the generational process of migration

An investigation into business excellence activities and perceptions across Asian organisations

This paper examines the use of business excellence (BE) across Asia. The study investigates the effectiveness of BE in those organisations that adopt it and also the approaches these organisations use in order to adopt BE. 74 organisations were surveyed across India, Japan, Republic of China, Singapore and Thailand and this data was triangulated with the results of 21 discussion groups and 13 interviews with senior executives of organisations that had won BE awards. The findings indicate that BE is seen as an important initiative and that winning BE awards is a key objective for organisations in the Asian region. There are, however, a number of barriers to BE adoption which include a failure to fully educate the majority of staff in BE, a lack of development of a BE culture and a lack of resources

Business improvement tools and techniques: a comparison across sectors and industries

The purpose of this study was to investigate the awareness, usage, perceived effectiveness and potential future use of improvement tools and techniques via two sets of comparisons: between public and private sector organisations, and between manufacturers and service organisations. The need for the study was driven by the current lack of understanding of the extent of improvement tools and techniques adoption on a global scale. A questionnaire survey of 453 respondents from over 20 countries was conducted and the quantitative data were analysed through use of the IBM SPSS software package. The study’s findings indicated that there are no significant differences between both sets of organisations for the majority of improvement tools and techniques. However, this study has shown that public sector organisations are more likely to adopt some improvement tools and techniques in comparison to their private sector counterparts. Similarly, service organisations are also more likely to adopt some improvement tools and techniques than their manufacturing counterparts. These results contradict the conventional perception that improvement tools and techniques are used more often by the private sector and manufacturing organisations

Mineralogical and fluid inclusion characteristics of epithermal-style gold mineralization at the Goldy and Irene showings, Dawson Range, Yukon Territory, Canada

1 online resource (71 p.) : illustrations (chiefly colour), colour mapsIncludes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (p. 46-48).Jurassic- to Cretaceous-age gold mineralization at the Goldy and Irene showings in the Dawson Range, Yukon Territory occurs in intrusive igneous bodies and metasedimentary rocks of the Yukon-Tanana terrane. Petrography, fluid inclusion microthermometry, electron microprobe analysis, and SEM-BSE techniques were used to study the characteristics of Au mineralization. At the Goldy showing mineralization consists of: pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, (suspected) dissolved gold in sulfides, sphalerite, galena, +/- tetrahedrite-tennantite, +/- rutile and boulangerite in multiple stages of hydrothermal quartz-carbonate veining. At the Irene showing mineralization consists of: pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, stibnite, electrum, rutile, boulangerite, and a variety of Sb-sulfides and sulfosalts hosted in quartz-carbonate veining. Fluid inclusion microthermometry of secondary inclusions hosted in quartz showed salinity ranges of 0- 6 wt% NaCl eq at Goldy, and homogenization temperatures (ThL+V→L) of 200-250 °C. At Irene salinity ranges of 5-15 wt% NaCl eq. and ThL+V→L of 140-230 °C were determined. The results of mineralogical and fluid inclusion studies suggest that the showings can be classified as low- (to intermediate)-sulfidation epithermal style mineralization. The dissimilarity of salinities and ThL+V→L values, with Irene being a cooler (and possibly deeper) hydrothermal system with higher salinities than Goldy indicates differing distances from a common heat source and more pronounced involvement of meteoric water at Goldy. Two different mineralizing events are proposed: a high T event involving As-Au association, and a lower T event, more consistent with epithermal T conditions involving Sb-Au association that is more pronounced at the Irene showing