A Bridge over Troubled Water: The Role of the British Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) in Facilitating Labour-Management Consultation in Public Sector Transformation

The aim of this paper is to examine the changing role of the state in a more market-driven system of industrial relations, specifically in terms of the new roles that are being developed with regard to mediation, advisory and arbitration services. It focuses empirically on the role played by the British Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) in facilitating the modernisation of public sector employment relations. We show how ACAS has played a ‘benchmarking’ role that assists the development of more strategic forms of decision-making and co-operation in employment relations change, and identify the challenges of developing such an approach in the context of the shift towards a more decentralised and market-oriented system of public service delivery. In conclusion we assert that there is a new ‘advisory and benchmarking’ state evolving based on a soft-market view of industrial relations, and that this mitigates (but is also in tension with) the harder market view within the state concerned with transforming the public sector

Drawing on the Innovative Moments Model during Career Construction Counseling to explain and foster client change

Career Construction Counseling (CCC) is a narrative intervention that supports individuals in the elaboration of narrative identity and career construction. The theory, research, and practice of this approach to career counseling has benefited from the Innovative Moments Model (IMM) to explain client change. Similar to CCC, the IMM is grounded on a narrative conception of human functioning, in which psychological difficulties arise from problematic self-narratives that constrain the meaning-making. Change takes place when clients challenge problematic self-narratives and construct new meanings that lead to new ways of behaving, thinking, or feeling. These novelties are termed innovative moments. The integration of IMM into the study of CCC has provided empirical evidence about the processes of client change throughout this intervention. Findings show that the transformation of a client’s self-narrative is associated with the aims of each session revealing a movement from a focus in structuring the past to an increased engagement in projecting the future. Moreover, results suggest the possibility of using IMs as process markers to guide counselors in facilitating client change during counseling sessions. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the contribution of IMM to CCC theory, research, and practice. We begin by presenting the Innovative Moments framework. Then we review CCC process research using the Innovative Moment’s framework. Finally, research implications for theory and practice of CCC are discussed

Sphinx: A Secure Architecture Based on Binary Code Diversification and Execution Obfuscation

Sphinx, a hardware-software co-design architecture for binary code and runtime obfuscation. The Sphinx architecture uses binary code diversification and self-reconfigurable processing elements to maintain application functionality while obfuscating the binary code and architecture states to attackers. This approach dramatically reduces an attacker's ability to exploit information gained from one deployment to attack another deployment. Our results show that the Sphinx is able to decouple the program's execution time, power and memory and I/O activities from its functionality. It is also practical in the sense that the system (both software and hardware) overheads are minimal.Comment: Boston Area Architecture 2018 Workshop (BARC18

Sphinx: a secure architecture based on binary code diversification and execution obfuscation

Sphinx, a hardware-software co-design architecture for binary code and runtime obfuscation. The Sphinx architecture uses binary code diversification and self-reconfigurable processing elements to maintain application functionality while obfuscating the binary code and architecture states to attackers. This approach dramatically reduces an attacker’s ability to exploit information gained from one deployment to attack another deployment. Our results show that the Sphinx is able to decouple the program’s execution time, power and memory and I/O activities from its functionality. It is also practical in the sense that the system (both software and hardware) overheads are minimal.Published versio

Geometric phases in 2D and 3D polarized fields: geometrical, dynamical, and topological aspects

Geometric phases are a universal concept that underpins numerous phenomena involving multi-component wave fields. These polarization-dependent phases are inherent in interference effects, spin-orbit interaction phenomena, and topological properties of vector wave fields. Geometric phases have been thoroughly studied in two-component fields, such as two-level quantum systems or paraxial optical waves. However, their description for fields with three or more components, such as generic nonparaxial optical fields routinely used in modern nano-optics, constitutes a nontrivial problem. Here we describe geometric, dynamical, and total phases calculated along a closed spatial contour in a multi-component complex field, with particular emphasis on 2D (paraxial) and 3D (nonparaxial) optical fields. We present several equivalent approaches: (i) an algebraic formalism, universal for any multi-component field; (ii) a dynamical approach using the Coriolis coupling between the spin angular momentum and reference-frame rotations; and (iii) a geometric representation, which unifies the Pancharatnam-Berry phase for the 2D polarization on the Poincar\'e sphere and the Majorana-sphere representation for the 3D polarized fields. Most importantly, we reveal close connections between geometric phases, angular-momentum properties of the field, and topological properties of polarization singularities in 2D and 3D fields, such as C-points and polarization M\"obius strips.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Rep. Prog. Phy

Galaxy Quenching from Cosmic Web Detachment

We propose the Cosmic Web Detachment (CWD) model, a framework to interpret the star-formation history of galaxies in a cosmological context. The CWD model unifies several starvation mechanisms known to disrupt or stop star formation into one single physical framework. Galaxies begin accreting star-forming gas at early times via a network of primordial filaments, simply related to the pattern of density fluctuations in the initial conditions. But when shell-crossing occurs on intergalactic scales, this pattern is disrupted, and the galaxy detaches from its primordial filaments, ending the accretion of cold gas. We argue that CWD encompasses known external processes halting star formation, such as harassment, strangulation and starvation. On top of these external processes, internal feedback processes such as AGN contribute to stop in star formation as well. By explicitly pointing out the non-linear nature of CWD events we introduce a simple formalism to identify CWD events in N-body simulations. With it we reproduce and explain, in the context of CWD, several observations including downsizing, the cosmic star formation rate history, the galaxy mass-color diagram and the dependence of the fraction of red galaxies with mass and local density.Comment: 20 pages, accepted for publication in OJA. High-res version: http://skysrv.pha.jhu.edu/~miguel/Papers/CWD/ms.pd

Unexpected contraction of a zeolite framework upon isomorphous substitution of Si by Al

Isomorphous substitution of Si by Al in the framework of sodalites synthesized in ethylene glycol causes an unexpected contraction of the zeolite framework

Non-Gaussian dynamic Bayesian modelling for panel data

A first order autoregressive non-Gaussian model for analysing panel data is proposed. The main feature is that the model is able to accommodate fat tails and also skewness, thus allowing for outliers and asymmetries. The modelling approach is to gain sufficient flexibility, without sacrificing interpretability and computational ease. The model incorporates individual effects and we pay specific attention to the elicitation of the prior. As the prior structure chosen is not proper, we derive conditions for the existence of the posterior. By considering a model with individual dynamic parameters we are also able to formally test whether the dynamic behaviour is common to all units in the panel. The methodology is illustrated with two applications involving earnings data and one on growth of countries.autoregressive modelling; growth convergence; individual effects; labour earnings; prior elicitation; posterior existence; skewed distributions