Disempowerment and resistance in the print industry? Reactions to surveillance-capable technology

This article offers a critique of recent characterisations of the effects of electronic technologies in the workplace. It presents detailed case study evidence that calls into question a number of common theoretical assumptions about the character of surveillance at work and the responses of employees to it

Obesity in individuals with schizophrenia:a case controlled study in Scotland

We would like to thank Dr Moira Connolly, Professor Steve Lawrie and Dr Carol Robertson who, along with the authors, were part of a protocol development group funded by the NHS Research Scotland Mental Health Network (NRS MHN) formerly known as the Scottish Mental Health Research Network (SMHRN). We are grateful to the NRS MHN for funding the data acquisition and to the PCCIU for providing the data. We also thank Professor Gordon Murray for statistical advice.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Classical Cepheid Pulsation Models: IX. New Input Physics

We constructed several sequences of classical Cepheid envelope models at solar chemical composition ($Y=0.28, Z=0.02$) to investigate the dependence of the pulsation properties predicted by linear and nonlinear hydrodynamical models on input physics. To study the dependence on the equation of state (EOS) we performed several numerical experiments by using the simplified analytical EOS originally developed by Stellingwerf and the recent analytical EOS developed by Irwin. Current findings suggest that the pulsation amplitudes as well as the topology of the instability strip marginally depend on the adopted EOS. We also investigated the dependence of observables predicted by theoretical models on the mass-luminosity (ML) relation and on the spatial resolution across the Hydrogen and the Helium partial ionization regions. We found that nonlinear models are marginally affected by these physical and numerical assumptions. In particular, the difference between new and old models in the location as well as in the temperature width of the instability strip is on average smaller than 200 K. However, the spatial resolution somehow affects the pulsation properties. The new fine models predict a period at the center of the Hertzsprung Progression ($P_{HP}=9.65$$-$9.84 days) that reasonably agree with empirical data based on light curves ($P_{HP}=10.0\pm 0.5$ days; \citealt{mbm92}) and on radial velocity curves ($P_{HP}=9.95\pm 0.05$ days; \citealt{mall00}), and improve previous predictions by Bono, Castellani, and Marconi (2000, hereinafter BCM00).Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

The Shape and Scale of Galactic Rotation from Cepheid Kinematics

A catalog of Cepheid variables is used to probe the kinematics of the Galactic disk. Radial velocities are measured for eight distant Cepheids toward l = 300; these new Cepheids provide a particularly good constraint on the distance to the Galactic center, R_0. We model the disk with both an axisymmetric rotation curve and one with a weak elliptical component, and find evidence for an ellipticity of 0.043 +/- 0.016 near the Sun. Using these models, we derive R_0 = 7.66 +/- 0.32 kpc and v_circ = 237 +/- 12 km/s. The distance to the Galactic center agrees well with recent determinations from the distribution of RR Lyrae variables, and disfavors most models with large ellipticities at the solar orbit.Comment: 36 pages, LaTeX, 10 figure

Analysis of subcellular metabolite levels of potato tubers (Solanum tuberosum) displaying alterations in cellular or extracellular sucrose metabolism

The expression of a heterologous invertase in potato tubers (Solanum tuberosum) in either the cytosol or apoplast leads to a decrease in total sucrose content and to an increase in glucose. Depending on the targeting of the enzyme different changes in phenotype and metabolism of the tubers occur: the cytosolic invertase expressing tubers show an increase in the glycolytic flux, accumulation of amino acids and organic acids, and the appearance of novel disaccharides; however, these changes are not observed when the enzyme is expressed in the apoplast [Roessner et al. (2001). Plant Cell, 13, 11-29]. The analysis of these lines raised several questions concerning the regulation of compartmentation of metabolites in potato tubers. In the current study we addressed these questions by performing comparative subcellular metabolite profiling. We demonstrate that: (i) hexoses accumulate in the vacuole independently of their site of production, but that the cytosolic invertase expression led to a strong increase in the cytosolic glucose concentration and decrease in cytosolic sucrose, whereas these effects were more moderate in the apoplastic expressors; (ii) three out of four of the novel compounds found in the cytosolic overexpressors accumulate in the same compartment; (iii) despite changes in absolute cellular content the subcellular distribution of amino acids was invariant in the invertase overexpressing tubers. These results are discussed in the context of current models of the compartmentation of primary metabolism in heterotrophic plant tissues

Alteration of the interconversion of pyruvate and malate in the plastid or cytosol of ripening tomato fruit invokes diverse consequences on sugar but similar effects on cellular organic Acid, metabolism, and transitory starch accumulation

The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of decreased cytosolic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) and plastidic NADP-dependent malic enzyme (NADP-ME) on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) ripening. Transgenic tomato plants with strongly reduced levels of PEPCK and plastidic NADP-ME were generated by RNA interference gene silencing under the control of a ripening-specific E8 promoter. While these genetic modifications had relatively little effect on the total fruit yield and size, they had strong effects in fruit metabolism. Both transformants were characterized by lower levels of starch at breaker stage. Analysis of the activation state of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase correlated with the decrease of starch in both transformats, which suggest that is due to an altered cellular redox status. Moreover, metabolic profiling and feeding experiments involving positional labelled glucoses of fruits lacking in plastidic NADP-malic enzyme and cytosolic PEPCK activities revealed differential changes in overall respiration rates and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle flux. Inactivation of cytosolic PEPCK affected the respiration rate which suggests that excess of oxaloacetate OAA is converted to aspartate and reintroduced in the TCA via 2-oxoglutarate/glutamate. On the other hand, the plastidic NADP-malic enzyme antisense lines were characterized by no changes in respiration rates and TCA cycle flux and together with an increase of pyruvate kinase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase activities indicates that pyruvate is supply through these enzymes to the TCA cycle. These results are discussed in the context of current models of the importance of malate during tomato fruit ripening

Polaris B, an optical companion of Polaris (alpha UMi) system: atmospheric parameters, chemical composition, distance and mass

We present an analysis of high-resolution spectroscopic observations of Polaris B, the optical companion of the Polaris Ab system. The star has a radial velocity V_r of -16.6km/s to -18.9km/s, and a projected rotational velocity vsini=110 km/s. The derived atmospheric parameters are: Teff=6900K; logg=4.3; V_t=2.5km/s. Polaris B has elemental abundances generally similar to those of the Cepheid Polaris A (Usenko et al. 2005a), although carbon, sodium and magnesium are close to the solar values. At a spectral type of F3V Polaris B has a luminosity of 3.868L_sun, an absolute magnitude of +3.30mag, and a distance of 109.5pc. The mass of the star is estimated to be 1.39M_sun, close to a mass of 1.38+/-0.61M_sun for the recently-resolved orbital periods companion Polaris Ab observed by Evans et al. (2007).Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Diurnal changes of polysome loading track sucrose content in the rosette of wildtype Arabidopsis and the starchless pgm mutant

Growth is driven by newly fixed carbon in the light, but depends at night on reserves, like starch, that are laid down in the light. Unless plants coordinate their growth with diurnal changes in the carbon supply, they will experience acute carbon starvation during the night. Protein synthesis represents a major component of cellular growth. Polysome loading was investigated during the diurnal cycle, an extended night and low CO2 in Arabidopsis Col-0 and in the starchless pgm mutant. In Col-0, polysome loading was 60-70% in the light, 40-45% for much of the night and <20% in an extended night, whilst in pgm it fell to <25% early in the night. Quantification of rRNA species using qRT-PCR revealed that polysome loading remained high for much of the night in the cytosol, was strongly light-dependent in the plastid, and was always high in mitochondria. The rosette sucrose content correlated with overall and with cytosolic polysome loading. Ribosome abundance did not show significant diurnal changes. However, compared to Col-0, pgm had decreased and increased abundance of plastidic and mitochondrial ribosomes, respectively. Incorporation of label from 13CO2 into protein confirmed that protein synthesis continues at a diminished rate in the dark. Modelling revealed that a decrease in polysome loading at night is required to balance protein synthesis with the availability of carbon from starch breakdown. Costs are also reduced by using amino acids that accumulated in previous light period. These results uncover a tight coordination of protein synthesis with the momentary supply of carbon