The new Nowhere Land? : a research and practice agenda for the “Always on Culture"

Purpose: Rapid developments in the field of information communication technology (ICT) mean that e-working has become increasingly common and prolonged – the “always-onculture” potential to enhance work-life balance via increased flexibility in terms of time and location, as well as posing the risk of being ‘always on’ has been identified with potentially serious implications for the health and performance of employees. We identify a research agenda and review current organizational practice. Approach: We discuss current technological developments as well as prevalent research frameworks and terminology in the domain of work-life balance and beyond to evaluate their fitness for purpose. We also report findings from a survey of 374 employees working within UK businesses about current organisational practice. Findings: Over half of the organisations sampled do not have clear guidance regarding worklife balance and supporting employees with regards to ICT enabled working. Key challenges are the sheer volume of email traffic, lack of training and infrastructure and an absence of appropriate support. Practical implications: Organisations need to develop clear policies regarding the psychosocial aspects of technology use and provide evidence-based guidance to managers and employees. Social implications: Managers and individuals require support to engage with technology in a healthy and sustainable way

The BHB stars in the Survey Fields of Rodgers et al. (1993): New Observations and Comparisons with other Recent Surveys

We study blue horizontal branch (BHB) and RR Lyrae stars in the Rogers et al. (1993a) fields and compare their velocity and density distributions with other surveys in the same part of the sky. Photometric data are given for 176 early-type stars in the northern field. We identify fourteen BHB stars and four possible BHB stars, and determine the selection efficiency of the Century Survey, the HK Survey, and the SDSS survey for BHB stars. We give light curves and \gamma -radial velocities for three type-ab RR Lyrae stars in the northern field; comparison with the nearby LONEOS Survey shows that there is likely to be an equal number of lower-amplitude type-ab RR Lyrae stars that we do not find. There are therefore at least twice as many BHB stars as type-ab RR Lyrae stars in the northern field--similar to the ratio in the solar neighborhood. The velocity distribution of the southern field shows no evidence for an anomalous thick disk that was found by Gilmore et al. (2002); the halo velocity peaks at a slightly prograde rotational velocity but there is also a significant retrograde halo component in this field. The velocity distribution in the northern field shows no evidence of Galactic rotation for |Z|>4 kpc and a slight prograde motion for |Z|<4 kpc. The space densities of BHB stars in the northern field agree with an extrapolation of the power-law distribution recently derived by de Propris et al. (2010). For |Z|<4 kpc, however, we observe an excess of BHB stars compared with this power-law. We conclude that these BHB stars mostly belong to a spatially flattened, non-rotating inner halo component of the Milky Way in confirmation of the Kinman et al. (2009) analysis of Century Survey BHB stars.Comment: 24 pages, accepted in A

Two-way coherent Doppler error due to solar corona

Two-way coherent Doppler errors resulting from phase scintillations induced on the uplink by the solar corona are considered. It is shown that this error can be estimated by taking statistics on the differential Doppler measurements. Typical estimates for the error are given for four Sun-Earth-probe angles and for integration times ranging from 1 second to 1 minute. These results are based on data collected during the 1985 Voyager 2 conjunction

Exploring the impact of the increased tuition fees on academic staffs’ experiences in post-92 Universities: A small-scale qualitative study.

The introduction of the new tuition fee regime in the UK academic session 2012–2013 has resulted in concerns in the Higher Education (HE) community that students’ expectations may become unmanageable. Previous research has explored the expectations and experiences of undergraduate psychology students; the current study extended this by considering whether the increased tuition fees have changed the experiences of academic staff in HE. To achieve this, five semi-structured interviews with psychology staff in two post-92 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were undertaken. Results suggested staff perceptions have undergone minimal change in their day-to-day experiences. However, perceptions of the wider HE issues, such as meeting targets and fulfilling requirements of the role, appear to be enhanced following the contextual changes of HE. Finally, the results reported here suggest generally good staff satisfaction, regardless of these changing times within the sector. Future research and the need for more widespread, large scale studies are discussed

A swarm of bees in May

Citation: Kinman, Charles Franklin. A swarm of bees in May. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1904.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: In its characteristics the Italian bee as we find it today is not different from that found over two thousand years ago, by Spinola, in a part of Italy called Liguria. No doubt bees of this variety existed in that country long before they were reported, for at that time they had assumed a disposition and habits that could be established only by unchanging surroundings, such as a particular food, protection against enemies, and isolation from other varieties of bees which would cause their characteristics to vary. The variety was well established through the isolation, as the seas and the snow covered mountains which completly surround Italy made it impossible for other insects to enter this territory. There are many varieties of apidae. However we will not consider any except the Ligurian or Italian bee, as it is known, since it is far more numerous and important economically than any other variety of bees and the complete exclusion of other varieties by them is only a matter of time. While there is nothing but what is interesting and instructing about the work of the Italian bee, we will confine ourself as near as possible to their work of a single month, May