Recasting the home-work relationship: a case of mutual adjustment?

Advances in communication and information technologies, changing managerial strategies and changing cultural expectations about the location of (paid) work, have meant that paid work is increasingly conducted from home. Home then becomes the place where the discourse of industrial production meets with the discourse of household production. We analyse the relationship between these two traditionally separate discourses, which, through the disintegration of the time/space compression, increasingly come to bear on each other. We report on the experiences of home-workers and their families coping with the co-presence of the sometimes conflicting and sometimes competing demands and values embedded in such discourses. In doing so, we contribute to current understandings of the complexities inherent in emergent forms of organization, as the relationship between work and home is recast. Theoretically and methodologically, this empirical study is located within a discursive framework, and we emphasize the usefulness of such approaches to studying organizational realities

Spatial Structure of Ion Beams in an Expanding Plasma

We report spatially resolved perpendicular and parallel, to the magnetic field, ion velocity distribution function (IVDF) measurements in an expanding argon helicon plasma. The parallel IVDFs, obtained through laser induced fluorescence (LIF), show an ion beam with v ≈ 8000 m/s flowing downstream and confined to the center of the discharge. The ion beam is measurable for tens of centimeters along the expansion axis before the LIF signal fades, likely a result of metastable quenching of the beam ions. The parallel ion beam velocity slows in agreement with expectations for the measured parallel electric field. The perpendicular IVDFs show an ion population with a radially outward flow that increases with distance from the plasma axis. Structures aligned to the expanding magnetic field appear in the DC electric field, the electron temperature, and the plasma density in the plasma plume. These measurements demonstrate that at least two-dimensional and perhaps fully three-dimensional models are needed to accurately describe the spontaneous acceleration of ion beams in expanding plasmas

Homological algebra for osp(1/2n)

We discuss several topics of homological algebra for the Lie superalgebra osp(1|2n). First we focus on Bott-Kostant cohomology, which yields classical results although the cohomology is not given by the kernel of the Kostant quabla operator. Based on this cohomology we can derive strong Bernstein-Gelfand-Gelfand resolutions for finite dimensional osp(1|2n)-modules. Then we state the Bott-Borel-Weil theorem which follows immediately from the Bott-Kostant cohomology by using the Peter-Weyl theorem for osp(1|2n). Finally we calculate the projective dimension of irreducible and Verma modules in the category O

Projectively equivariant quantizations over the superspace Rp∣q\R^{p|q}

We investigate the concept of projectively equivariant quantization in the framework of super projective geometry. When the projective superalgebra pgl(p+1|q) is simple, our result is similar to the classical one in the purely even case: we prove the existence and uniqueness of the quantization except in some critical situations. When the projective superalgebra is not simple (i.e. in the case of pgl(n|n)\not\cong sl(n|n)), we show the existence of a one-parameter family of equivariant quantizations. We also provide explicit formulas in terms of a generalized divergence operator acting on supersymmetric tensor fields.Comment: 19 page

Youth transitions: mobility and the travel intentions of 12–20 year olds, Reading, UK

Whilst Western societies may have reached ‘peak car’, young people are arguably the most significant group whose levels of car ownership, use and driving licence acquisition have declined. Against this backdrop, the paper discusses qualitative research conducted in Reading, UK considering young people’s (aged 12-20) views about bus travel. Whilst current pricing structures (both in Reading and across the UK) often offer under 18s discounted travel, the paper explores young people’s intentions about future travel as young adults. Drawing upon theorisations around youth transitions, we discuss how young people expect their mobility patterns to change as young adults in complex, shifting, fluid ways, and to involve multi-modal travel. Young people construct complex choice-biographies through which they plan pathways to navigate these mobility transitions. Although a small-scale study, this paper also offers some insights into the challenges, complexities and limitations of researching mobility intention

The G0 Experiment: Apparatus for Parity-Violating Electron Scattering Measurements at Forward and Backward Angles

In the G0 experiment, performed at Jefferson Lab, the parity-violating elastic scattering of electrons from protons and quasi-elastic scattering from deuterons is measured in order to determine the neutral weak currents of the nucleon. Asymmetries as small as 1 part per million in the scattering of a polarized electron beam are determined using a dedicated apparatus. It consists of specialized beam-monitoring and control systems, a cryogenic hydrogen (or deuterium) target, and a superconducting, toroidal magnetic spectrometer equipped with plastic scintillation and aerogel Cerenkov detectors, as well as fast readout electronics for the measurement of individual events. The overall design and performance of this experimental system is discussed.Comment: Submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Method

Seismic risk assessment for developing countries : Pakistan as a case study

Modern Earthquake Risk Assessment (ERA) methods usually require seismo-tectonic information for Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) that may not be readily available in developing countries. To bypass this drawback, this paper presents a practical event-based PSHA method that uses instrumental seismicity, available historical seismicity, as well as limited information on geology and tectonic setting. Historical seismicity is integrated with instrumental seismicity to determine the long-term hazard. The tectonic setting is included by assigning seismic source zones associated with known major faults. Monte Carlo simulations are used to generate earthquake catalogues with randomized key hazard parameters. A case study region in Pakistan is selected to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. The results indicate that the proposed method produces seismic hazard maps consistent with previous studies, thus being suitable for generating such maps in regions where limited data are available. The PSHA procedure is developed as an integral part of an ERA framework named EQRAM. The framework is also used to determine seismic risk in terms of annual losses for the study region