bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Abnormal Tibiofemoral Contact Stress and Its Association With Altered Kinematics After Center-Center Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction
Authors: Imhauser Carl , Mauro Craig , Choi Daniel , Rosenberg Eric , Mathew Stephen , Nguyen Joseph , Ma Yan , Wickiewicz Thomas
Published: March 2013

Background:

Abnormal tibiofemoral contact stress and aberrant kinematics may influence the progression of osteoarthritis in the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)–deficient and the ACL-reconstructed knee. However, relationships between contact stress and kinematics after ACL reconstruction are poorly understood. Therefore, we posed the following research questions: (1) How do ACL deficiency and reconstruction affect the kinematics of and contact stress in the tibiofemoral joint? (2) What kinematic differences are associated with abnormal contact stress after ACL reconstruction?

Hypothesis:

Center-center ACL reconstruction will not restore knee kinematics and contact stress. Correlations will exist between abnormal contact stress and aberrant kinematics after ACL reconstruction.

Study Design:

Controlled laboratory study.

Methods:

Clinical tests of anterior and rotational stability were simulated on 11 cadaveric knees using an industrial robot. Tests were conducted with the ACL intact, sectioned, and after single-bundle ACL reconstruction using a quadrupled hamstring autograft with tunnels drilled through the center of the native footprints. Kinematics were recorded during the tests. Contact stress was continuously recorded from a stress transducer fixed to the tibial plateau, and mean contact stress was calculated regionally.

Results:

ACL deficiency resulted in increased mean contact stress in the posterior sectors of the medial and lateral compartments under anterior and rotational loads, respectively. Reconstruction reduced stress in these locations; however, contact stress abnormalities remained. On average, kinematics were overconstrained after ACL reconstruction (≤1.8 mm and ≤2.6° in all directions). However, combinations of overconstrained and underconstrained motions in abduction/adduction and medial-lateral translation in response to combined moments, and anterior-posterior translation, medial-lateral translation, and axial rotation in response to an anterior load were associated with abnormal mean contact stress.

Conclusion:

ACL reconstruction reduces high stresses generated in the posterior compartment of the ACL-deficient knee. Abnormal contact stress after ACL reconstruction is related to multiplanar variations in knee kinematics.

Clinical Relevance:

Clinical measures of multiplanar kinematics may help to better characterize the quality of ACL reconstruction. Such measures may help identify patients at increased risk of long-term joint degeneration following this surgery.
Assessing Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Negative Interaction With the Clergy and Health Among Older Mexican Americans
Authors: Krause Neal , Hayward R. David
Published: March 2013

A rapidly growing literature indicates that supportive social relationships are associated with better physical and mental health. However, this research further reveals that interaction with others may also be conflicted and unpleasant. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate negative interaction that arises within a social context that is important to many older Mexican Americans (i.e., negative interaction with a member of the clergy). Findings from a nationwide survey of older Mexican Americans indicate that more frequent interpersonal conflict with a member of the clergy is associated with less favorable self-rated health as well as more acute and chronic health conditions. However, these effects were observed among older Mexican American women but not among older Mexican American men.
Elastic, double-layered poly (l-lactide-co-ϵ-caprolactone) scaffold for long-term vascular reconstruction
Authors: Mun Cho Hay , Kim Sang-Hoon , Jung Youngmee , Kim Sang-Heon , Kim Ae-kyeong , Kim Dong-Ik , Kim Soo Hyun
Published: March 2013

Synthetic vessel grafts have been used as vascular substitutes for cardiovascular bypass procedures. In this study, we developed a novel tubular double-layered poly(l-lactide-co-ϵ-caprolactone) scaffold that did not require pretreatment with cell seeding by promoting autologous tissue regeneration by inducing the proliferation and differentiation of endothelial and smooth muscle progenitor cells after implantation. The patency and mechanical properties were maintained for one year after implantation, although 95% of the poly(l-lactide-co-ϵ-caprolactone) scaffolds had degraded. After this period, there was a lining of endothelial cells, an accumulation of collagen and elastin, and the development of neovascularization inside the poly(l-lactide-co-ϵ-caprolactone).
Bioactive glass incorporation in calcium phosphate cement-based injectable bone substitute for improved in vitro biocompatibility and in vivo bone regeneration
Authors: Sadiasa Alexander , Sarkar Swapan Kumar , Franco Rose Ann , Min Young Ki , Lee Byong Taek
Published: March 2013

In this work, we fabricated injectable bone substitutes modified with the addition of bioactive glass powders synthesized via ultrasonic energy-assisted hydrothermal method to the calcium phosphate-based bone cement to improve its biocompatibility. The injectable bone substitutes was initially composed of a powder component (tetracalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate dihydrate and calcium sulfate dehydrate) and a liquid component (citric acid, chitosan and hydroxyl-propyl-methyl-cellulose) upon which various concentrations of bioactive glass were added: 0%, 10%, 20% and 30%. Setting time and compressive strength of the injectable bone substitutes were evaluated and observed to improve with the increase of bioactive glass content. Surface morphologies were observed via scanning electron microscope before and after submersion of the samples to simulated body fluid and increase in apatite formation was detected using x-ray diffraction machine. In vitro biocompatibility of the injectable bone substitutes was observed to improve with the addition of bioactive glass as the proliferation/adhesion behavior of cells on the material increased. Human gene markers were successfully expressed using real time-polymerase chain reaction and the samples were found to promote cell viability and be more biocompatible as the concentration of bioactive glass increases. In vivo biocompatibility of the samples containing 0% and 30% bioactive glass were evaluated using Micro-CT and histological staining after 3 months of implantation in male rabbits’ femurs. No inflammatory reaction was observed and significant bone formation was promoted by the addition of bioactive glass to the injectable bone substitute system.
Boolean Minimization in Social Science Research
Authors: Thiem Alrik , Duşa Adrian
Published: March 2013

Besides an increase in the number of empirical applications, the widening landscape of tailored computer programs attests to the success of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a social research method. Users now have the choice between three graphical user interface (GUI) and three command line interface (CLI) solutions. In addition to different functional foci, each program possesses several technical particularities, some of which the vast majority of end users remain unaware of. Since these particularities may influence results and in turn substantive conclusions, this review is a timely undertaking. More specifically, we compare the two most common GUIs fs/QCA and Tosmana as well as the CLI QCA. By reanalyzing data from a sociological study on rural grassroots associations in Norway, major differences and similarities with respect to truth table construction, minimization algorithms, and prime implicant chart management are illustrated.
A matter of time: young professionals’ experiences of long work hours
Authors: Sturges Jane
Published: March 2013

This article examines young construction industry professionals’ experiences of working long hours from the perspective of the meanings that they ascribe to work time and how these influence the hours that they work. It considers how such notions of ‘qualitative’ time spent on work may shape attitudes and behaviour relating to ‘quantitative’ work hours. The findings show that, for the interviewees, work time has meanings chiefly associated with enjoyment, being professional and being part of a work family. The article contributes to the long work hours literature by broadening our understanding of how young professionals experience long work hours, why they may not always view them negatively and how the meanings that they attach to them can lead to particular patterns of work hours. It also highlights gender differences in this regard.
Access denied: employee control of personal communications at work
Authors: Rose Emily
Published: March 2013

Many employees experience a strained relationship between their paid work and personal lives. Information and communication technologies present new opportunities for reshaping this relationship. In particular, they challenge the spatial and temporal boundary that typically separates the realms. This article focuses on the way that employees use information and communication technologies to attend to personal life matters during the workday. It examines whether employees take advantage of the technical features of the devices and applications to erode the spatial and temporal boundary or, alternatively, whether they engage in practices that otherwise reconfigure the relationship, such as controlling the flow of communication passing between work and personal life. The article argues that the latter is the case. It demonstrates that employees engage in multi-faceted strategies to restrict boundary permeability. This results in individually nuanced interfaces whereby people from workers’ personal lives have varying levels of access to that worker.
An experimental investigation on Nd:YAG laser microchanneling on polymethyl methacrylate submerged in water
Authors: Prakash Shashi , Acherjee Bappa , Kuar Arunanshu S , Mitra Souren
Published: March 2013

In this research work, an experimental investigation has been carried out on underwater laser microchanneling on polymethyl methacrylate, using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser system. The underwater laser processing has been used to minimize the heat-affected zone, microcracking and burr formation around the microchannel. The process parameters that have been taken into consideration are lamp current, pulse frequency, pulse width and cutting speed. The microchannel characteristics that have been taken into account as responses are microchannel width, microchannel depth, burr width and burr height. Response surface methodology has been used to develop the mathematical relationships between the process parameters and microchannel characteristics. The adequacies of the models have been tested using analysis of variance. The interaction effects of process parameters on the microchannel characteristics have been analyzed and discussed. In addition to that, single-objective and multiobjective optimization of the process parameters have been performed to obtain desired values of microchannel characteristics.
Efficient method for detecting tool failures in high-speed machining process
Authors: Sevilla Perla Y , Jauregui Juan C , Herrera Gilberto , Robles Jose B
Published: March 2013

This research presents a method for detecting tool failures in high-speed face milling. This method detects tool failures from vibration signature maps. Tests were carried out at different tool failure levels, spindle speeds, feed rates, and workpiece mountings. Vibration signals were obtained with an accelerometer and processed using the continuous wavelet transform methodology. The vibration signature maps showed that healthy cutting tools produce a periodic insert passing frequency and its harmonics. In contrast, a damage tool generates additional nonlinear and transient frequencies at nonsynchronous frequencies. The experimental results agree with vibration signature maps obtained from a simulated cutting force model. The proposed method is effective as a tool failure detection method when transient and nonlinear behaviors are presented in face milling process. Moreover, the proposed method showed good results at different process parameters and for several types of tool failures. Finally, it is important to point out the use of accelerometers because they present several advantages against other types of sensors. Advantages such as low cost, wide bandwidth, and easy implementation are important characteristics for tool condition monitoring in high-speed machining.
One metaphor to rule them all? ‘Objects’ as tests of character in The Lord of the Rings
Authors: Sullivan Karen
Published: March 2013

This quantitative and qualitative study argues that the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings ( LotR) is based on a metaphoric blend, which is echoed in related metaphors for power throughout the trilogy. Particular metaphors may be repeated in a literary work to achieve a stylistic effect (Ben-Porat, 1992; Crisp et al., 2002; Sullivan, 2007; Werth, 1994). This article suggests that the One Ring, and other powers conceptualized as objects, repeatedly test the mettle and morality of characters throughout the LotR trilogy. The current study examines the One Ring as a metaphoric blend (in the sense of Fauconnier, 1997) based on the Object Event-Structure (OES) metaphor, in which abstract goals are conceptualized as physical objects (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999), and compares the structure of this blend with all other OES metaphors for power throughout LotR. The study finds that just as good characters are ‘weighed down’ by the Ring, they feel ‘burdened’ by other forms of power and authority, whereas evil characters do not feel that power is a ‘burden’. Similarly, the manner in which the Ring is acquired is indicative of character quality, a trend shared by other metaphors for power and authority. Finally, the Ring is a non-living object; and throughout the trilogy, other metaphoric ‘objects’ are found to be more likely to be evil, whereas plants and growing things are more likely to map metaphorically onto the forces of good.
Tennyson’s ‘metre of Catullus’: The ambivalent hendecasyllable
Authors: Duffell Martin J
Published: March 2013

This article argues that quantitative verse can be no more than an intellectual exercise in English because of the language’s strong dynamic accent and tendency towards stress-timing. The case focuses on Tennyson’s experiment entitled ‘Hendecasyllabics’, which he described as being ‘in a metre of Catullus’. The article offers a detailed comparison of the supra-segmental features of Tennyson’s poem and its model and concludes that the English poem lacks an essential component of the Latin metre: a variable relationship between ictus and accent. As a result, Tennyson unwittingly composed lines with a regular accentual configuration, one that English poets had been studiously avoiding for 500 years. In contrast, poets of the Southern Romance languages have cultivated this type of line assiduously, and the article pursues the historical reasons for the divergence. It concludes that the difference is almost entirely due to individual aesthetic choices, and that this line structure, known as the endecasílabo melódico, is a viable option as a verse design for English poets.
Taming, controlling and metabolizing flows: Water and the urbanization process of Barcelona and Madrid (1850–2012)
Authors: March Hug
Published: March 2013

This paper aims to provide a historical reading of the urbanization of the water cycle in Madrid and Barcelona. Starting from an urban political ecology view, the urbanization of the water cycle is understood as the mobilization of water resources to keep pace with and sustain urban growth. This process could not be understood without inquiring into the evolution of the urban fabric in both cities. At the same time an understanding of the power choreographies over the water cycle needs to be brought to the fore. In Barcelona, disputes between the municipality and private capital over the water monopoly deeply shaped the trajectory of the urban supply from the mid-19th century until the early 20th century. Later on, under private monopoly, the search for water resources beyond the urban limits required the development of infrastructures such as dams and channels to keep pace with the intense urbanization of the postwar period. On the other hand, the fully public nature of the supplier in Madrid may help to explain the impressive magnitude of the waterworks, which belittle the urbanization of water of the Catalan city, while showing that ‘modernity’ in the form of ample supplies of good-quality water arrived in Madrid almost 100 years before Barcelona. Recent environmental and economic crises bring to light the hidden, complex and fragile entanglements that permit the flowing of water into the urban and suburban fabrics.
Growth and Development of Civil Service and Bureaucracy in Bangladesh: An Overview
Authors: Mollah Md. Awal Hossain
Published: March 2013

The aim of this article is to analyse the growth and development of bureaucracy as an institution of government in Bangladesh from historical and politico-administrative perspectives. Although it is now an independent state, various Hindu kings, Muslim emperors, British lords and zamindars of the Indian subcontinent ruled the area of Bangladesh for several hundred years. In 1947, when India and Pakistan emerged as independent states, Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan. To understand the growth and development of bureaucracy in Bangladesh, the article is divided into two broad sections: the colonial legacy of both British India and Pakistan (1601–1971) and the Bangladesh period (1971–2008). The structure and working patterns of bureaucracy in Bangladesh are a legacy of British colonial rule, which impeded reform efforts after Independence and caused politicisation of the administration and governance. Civil-military elitisms reduced accountability of the administration, resulting in a dominating bureaucratic structure with corruption.
Broken Out and Bust: Ayub Khan Clothing Ltd
Authors: Yasin Naveed
Published: March 2013

This case focuses on the strategic concepts of motivation, resources and the notion of ‘breakout’ which is a common strategic growth strategy associated with ethnic entrepreneurship. The breakout strategy encourages small ethnic businesses, which typically operate in ethnic enclaves serving their co-ethnic populations, to modify their strategy and alternatively target the indigenous population. In doing so, this case relates to the owner of Ayub Khan Clothing Limited being advised by a business support agency to relocate his business from an ethnic enclave of Manchester to the city centre of Manchester to target a wider range of native customers. Although academic literature encourages ethnic businesses to breakout into the mainstream market, little work has been done in considering the implications on practice for ethnic-owned businesses. Such a risky growth strategy could also lead to failure for owners of ethnic businesses. This case also highlights whether local business support agents and agencies should consider ethnic businesses to be identical to mainstream (native) businesses. Some may argue that these difficulties contributed towards the bankruptcy of Ayub Khan Clothing Limited which once was a successful business operating in a vibrant ethnic enclave of Manchester.
The Engro Zarkhez Challenge 2011
Authors: Alvi Sara , Butt Arif N. , Khurshid Anwar , Siddiqui M. Athar
Published: March 2013

The case aims at highlighting the intra organizational negotiation challenges faced by Engro Marketing team for attaining sales targets. The problem is of goal incongruence and lack of communication regarding sales targets in the organization. Additionally, the structural changes which had added a new layer of management of Area Marketing Managers (AMMs) in Engro led to role ambiguities between the Area Marketing Managers (AMM) and the Zonal Marketing Managers (ZMM).

The main challenges that Engro faces are:

a) There was an urgent need for differing viewpoints on sales targets to converge to a joint goal setting pattern

b) Up-gradation of skills was needed by AMM and ZMM with respect to increased listening and communication, facing and appreciating work-related conflict, working out interpersonal frictions and not using compromise as a basis for organizational decision-making, and

c) A commitment to the strategic goals of the company needed to be gained by establishing clear responsibilities for implementing them.
Suprajit Engineering Limited
Authors: Srinivasan R.
Published: March 2013

Suprajit Engineering Limited (SEL) was set up by Mr Ajith Kumar Rai, who serves as its Managing Director, when he returned as a fresh graduate from Canada. Foreseeing a boom in the country’s automobile market, Ajith decided to establish an automotive cable-manufacturing unit. His clarity of vision convinced TVS Motors to invest in setting up Suprajit Engineering as a small, one-unit firm in Bangalore, a fast-growing Indian metro. Beginning in 1987 as a small-scale automotive cable manufacturer, Suprajit is now a public listed company, with some of the world’s biggest automobile companies as clients, products spanning a wide range of automotive and non-automotive parts and eleven manufacturing units. This case traces the inspiring story of Suprajit Engineering Limited and aims to highlight the reasons behind Suprajit’s success and is intended to demonstrate rapid growth strategies of entrepreneurial firms.
In Search of Luxurious Slippers: The Birth of Edmini, an Entrepreneurial Venture in the UAE (A)
Authors: Alshaali Abdulnasser , Bodolica Virginia
Published: March 2013

This case study illustrates the birth of an entrepreneurial business concept, named Edmini, which was initiated by two Emirati citizens. The main idea behind Edmini lies in the creation of an online store to provide male consumers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) convenient means to acquire customized high-end slippers. Bringing out subtly the culture and tradition of the local UAE population, the case offers relevant insights into various processes and steps that were put in place to establish the Edmini brand between 2009 and 2010. By showcasing different experiences that revolve around identifying the market need, developing optimal branding schemes and allocating required resources for footwear manufacturing, this case provides the opportunity to grasp a thorough understanding of the challenges that a start-up could face.
High Film Centricity in Indian Television Channels
Authors: Murthy C.S.H.N.
Published: March 2013

A first-ever study of the content—programmes and their formats—of regional television (TV) channels of the largest south Indian state, Andhra Pradesh, working on a 24x7 pattern, has revealed the progressive decadence of public sphere and growing trivialization. The contents were singularly dependent on films and film-related materials such as songs, comedy clippings of scenes and dances for majority of their programmes, and contents as well. Grounded in the observation method (Rao 2008), the study is a simple normative, non-positivist and descriptive one, analyzing the contents and formats of the TV channels which have been divided into two categories: ‘news’ entertainment channels (as described by Thussu 2007) and the ‘other’ entertainment channels. The state of Andhra Pradesh has been taken as a case study for it has 44 TV channels, the highest in any state in India (Thomas 2010). The study has chosen five ‘news’ entertainment channels and five ‘other’ entertainment channels based on the TV rating points and advertisement tariffs besides their tie up with Tata Sky direct to home television channel. While the data obtained by both the ways confirmed that there is a 60 per cent of use of film programmes/content/titles/clippings (out of total time of transmission) in the case of ‘other’ entertainment channels, there has been about 70 per cent of the use of film content and programmes in the ‘news’ based entertainment channels. This confirms our assumption of contracting public sphere and trivialization of news content. The findings of the study have been discussed based on popular literature and scholarly works in the field as also the socio-economic and political factors responsible for such a media phenomenon.
The Growth of Contractors in the Construction Industry: Implications for Tax Revenue
Authors: Buchanan John , Allan Cameron
Published: March 2013

This paper is a preliminary investigation of the impact of the changing legal structures of employment on the tax system and the tax system on the structure of jobs. This issue is explored with special reference to the growth of contractor employment in the Australian construction industry. The paper shows how tax liabilities for individuals can be halved where they are deemed to be contractors. The paper estimates that in the mid 1990s this resulted in the average construction contractor paying around $6,000 a year less than equivalent PAYE workers. Losses to tax revenue could, therefore, be up $2.2 billion annually. The paper concludes that more research is required into the nexus between tax and employment structures. This dynamic has major implications for the future of work as well as the taxation system.
The Costs of Unemployment in Australia
Authors: Watts Martin J. , Mitchell William F.
Published: March 2013

In this paper it is demonstrated that the measurable costs of the sustained high rate of unemployment in Australia are substantially higher than the alleged gains from neo-liberal (microeconomic) reforms. In addition, significant individual and social costs can be identified. Consequently macroeconomic intervention to reduce unemployment should be viewed as a priority, rather than the imposition of market reform with its uncertain impact. The paper concludes with a brief outline of a Job Guarantee Program, advocated by Mitchell (1998) that utilises the principles of the buffer stock mechanism to reduce unemployment. It is argued that the net increase in government outlays is modest and could be offset by a reduction in the level of annual corporate welfare.
Effects of Unemployment on the Family
Authors: McClelland Alison
Published: March 2013

This paper reviews evidence about the incidence and impact of unemployment on the family. It finds that while the unemployment rate faced by husbands and wives is relatively low, many unemployed people fall into this category (36.2% were husbands and wives in 1998). Sole parents have a high unemployment rate. Hence, around one-third of unemployment is borne by parents with dependent children. Joblessness in families is also examined. The impacts of unemployment on families include poverty and hardship, strained relationships, poorer health (although the causal relationships are not always clear), and housing stress. Unemployment could also harm children’s development and employment futures. Some policy issues are explored including the need to provide protection for the living standards for families affected by unemployment and taking a number of actions to reduce unemployment. The dilemmas posed by mutual obligation and the trend to precarious low-paid work are also raised.
Unemployment and Youth Suicide
Authors: Morrell Stephen , Page Andrew , Taylor Richard
Published: March 2013

Suicide rates in younger age groups in Australia, and in a number of other similar Western countries, have increased substantially since the 1960s. In Australia this rise has occurred contemporaneously with rises in youth unemployment rates, especially in males. Aggregate analyses investigating the relationship between these trends are reviewed for Australia, and compared with similar international aggregate studies of youth suicide and unemployment. Individual based studies investigating the role of unemployment in the causal pathways associated with suicide are also considered in this review. Aggregate suicide and unemployment data for males aged 20–24 years is presented to illustrate the changing relationship between unemployment and youth suicide over 1921–1998. The relationship between youth suicide rates and unemployment rates, particularly in males, is discussed in terms of the utility of using such indicators in evaluating suicide prevention initiatives. The applicability of aggregate variables in multi-dimensional explanations of suicide is also discussed.
Labor Market Disability: Implications for the Unemployment Rate
Authors: Argyrous George , Neale Megan
Published: March 2013

This paper investigates the extent to which unemployment, particularly among older males, is hidden by the welfare system. It is argued that the official unemployment rate has fallen because of a decline in participation rates among older males since 1972, and a significant proportion of these can be accounted for by the increase in the percentage of males receiving the Disability Support Pension and the Mature Age Allowance. These males are considered the Labor Market Disabled, since the principal cause of them being on welfare is the weakness of the labor market in which they have traditionally found employment. The unemployment rate is then reconsidered after including the LMD into the calculation, producing a more pronounced hysteresis affect over successive business cycles. It is argued that active job creation programs are required to move these people from welfare to work.
The Social Costs of Unemployment
Authors: Morris Alan
Published: March 2013

The last two decades have witnessed the unraveling of the Keynesian consensus and full employment that characterized the quarter century after World War II. Inequality and poverty have deepened and hundreds of thousands of Australians no longer have job security and are being intermittently or permanently shut out of the formal economy. This review article examines the social costs of unemployment focusing on The Price of Prosperity: The Economic and Social Costs of Unemployment (TPOP) edited by Peter Saunders and Richard Taylor.

The TPOP is an ambitious endeavour to quantify the costs of employment in a number of areas. Thus there are chapters on the impact of unemployment on health, poverty, inequality, indigenous Australians, youth, the family, crime and urban neighbourhoods. The chapters are consummate reviews of major Australian and international studies on the impact of unemployment, making the book a key text.
The Fiscal Impact of the Privatisation of the Victorian Electricity Industry
Authors: Quiggin John
Published: March 2013

This paper is an analysis of the fiscal effects of the privatisation of the Victorian electricity industry. Privatisation is found to be approximately neutral in its effect on the net worth of the Victorian public sector. The buyers of electricity assets lost money, apparently because they anticipated more favourable regulatory treatment than they actually received. Electricity prices were increase prior to privatisation, and are still higher than those in states where the electricity industry has remained in public ownership, but consumers were not directly affected by privatisation as such. There were reductions in employment both before and after privatisation.
Innovations in Trade Union Approaches in Malaysia’s Garment Industry
Authors: Crinis Vicki
Published: March 2013

Women workers employed in the export-oriented manufacturing sector in Malaysia have traditionally had poor access to representation by trade unions for two reasons. Firstly, government rules and regulations have prevented sectoral trade unions from representing large sections of the workforce, and secondly, unions themselves have not considered women their primary constituency. As a result, non-governmental organisations (NGO), rather than trade unions, have played an important role in educating women workers about their rights since the 1980s. In the garment industry in recent years, NGO activism has precipitated a change in the trade unions’ focus towards women workers in general, and towards female overseas migrant workers in particular. Where once unions viewed migrant workers as undermining the wages and conditions of Malaysian workers, they now assert their right to equality in the workplace. This paper explores the context in which NGOs became involved in union-like activities and unions’ responses to that involvement.
How Has The Notion of Social Exclusion Developed In The European Discourse?
Authors: Bradshaw Jonathan
Published: March 2013

This paper reflects on the development of the idea of social exclusion in European and particularly in British discourses. When it first emerged, social exclusion seemed to add to little to poverty and in some guises carried a great deal of behaviourist ideological baggage, or blamed the poor. Over time, however, experience in the UK has shown that social exclusion has broadened the research agenda and opened up new possibilities for policy. This paper contributes to these debates by presenting new estimates of poverty and exclusion in Britain using data from the Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey. The estimates confirm that poverty and exclusion are related, but distinct concepts. There remains the question of whether social exclusion has not entered official discussions in Australia as a result of a ‘Howard effect’ or because of some more fundamental resistance in the Australian political — and academic — culture.
Business or Association? The Strategic Responses of Employer Associations to the Decentralisation of Bargaining in Australia
Authors: Sheldon Peter , Thornthwaite Louise
Published: March 2013

Decentralisation of bargaining poses particular challenges for employer associations. It reduces the sense of collective identity among members, decreases the attraction of associations’ traditional collective goods and increases the urgency and array of individual member needs while increasing the costs of servicing them. Decentralisation also threatens revenue as large companies, the financial backbone of associations, shift employment relations activities in-house. This weakens the attractions of membership with the risk that employer associations will retain only smaller, heavily dependent members. We discuss employer association attempts to meet these challenges while competing with commercial service businesses. Their strategic choices lie on a continuum between traditional membership-based organisational identity, with its roots in movement as well as organisation, and one that more closely approximates a business services firm. Associations experiment along this continuum as they develop strategy iteratively and the article identifies factors that help determine their choices.
Two and Two Make Five: Industrial Relations and the Gentle Art of Doublethink
Authors: Dabscheck Braham
Published: March 2013

The paper employs George Orwell's notion of doublethink in examining three contemporary industrial relations issues. They are the Cole Royal Commission into the building and construction industry, bargaining fees and employee entitlements. The Cole Royal Commission was an inquisition into the heresy of unionism. The decision of a Full Bench of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission on bargaining fees has found that collective bargaining does not pertain to the employer-employee relationship. This decision encourages free-riding to weaken unions. On the other hand, various employee entitlement schemes, developed by the Australian government, to meet obligations of companies to employees when the former collapse, enable, or encourage, companies to free-ride on the backs of taxpayers. The paper concludes with the observation that a bleak future awaits unions.
Social Security Pensions in Japan: A Balance Sheet Approach
Authors: Takayama Noriyuki
Published: March 2013

Japan is experiencing a rapid ageing of its population with a subsequent strain on its social security pensions. Despite periodic reforms over recent decades and comprehensive reforms in 2004, many outstanding issues remain. Using the balance sheet approach we show that despite its recent reforms, Japan's social security pensions face substantial excess liabilities. As well, the reforms themselves may have exacerbated the incentive-compatibility problem.
Growing Household Indebtedness and the Plummeting Saving Rate in Canada: An Explanatory Note
Authors: Seccareccia Mario
Published: March 2013

Much as it has occurred in the United States, over the last two decades the household saving rate in Canada has fallen sharply to unprecedented levels, as it now hovers essentially about the zero rate. Accompanying this fall, we have witnessed a parallel rise in household debt ratios — a phenomenon that some have dubbed a state of “affluenza”. The object of this article is to provide an explanation of this phenomenon by pointing especially to the role played by fiscal policy in shifting the burden of debt from the government to the household sector. Moreover, the article raises serious concern about the sustainability of this particular growth process.
The Contract Regulation Club
Authors: Dabscheck Braham
Published: March 2013

The Contract Regulation Club has been the dominant force in Australian industrial relations since the latter part of the 1980s. Its membership includes major business and employer organisations, leaders of the Liberal and National parties, various regulatory bodies, ‘New Right’ think tanks and media commentators. Its modus operandi is doublethink. It advocates deregulation of employment contracts while intervening in their operation and demanding more regulation to ensure that they are loaded in ‘favour’ of employers. The Club has a vision of an industrial relations nirvana where employees voluntarily align their behaviour to the needs of the enterprise. The paper argues that this vision is fundamentally flawed and is the basis of the Club's demand for more regulation. The paper examines the origins and consolidation of the Club, activities and interventions after the election of the Howard Coalition in 1996 and major features of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 (Cth)
Shifting the Balance of Power in Collective Bargaining: Australian Law, Industrial Action and Work Choices
Authors: McCrystal Shae
Published: March 2013

The Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 (Cth) effects significant changes to the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth) governing industrial action in the federal workplace relations system. This paper examines these changes, situating them in the context of the historical relationship between law and industrial action in Australia, and evaluating the impact of the changes on the balance of power in voluntary collective bargaining. The paper argues that the Work Choices changes have elevated the power of employers, and protection of third party welfare, above access to the right to strike for employee participants in collective bargaining.
Can Child Poverty Be Abolished? Promises and Policies in the UK
Authors: Sutherland Holly
Published: March 2013

In 1999 Tony Blair, the UK Prime Minister, promised to end child poverty within a generation. What does this mean? Can it be achieved? What progress has been made so far? The paper starts by placing UK child poverty at the end of the 20th Century in historical and international context. It reviews the policies that have been introduced in order to meet specific interim targets - of reducing child poverty by one quarter by 2004/5 and halving it in ten years - and discusses the prospects for success in meeting these targets. The second part takes a step back and reflects on why child poverty - rather than poverty more generally - has become the political and policy focus. It then considers whether such an emphasis - together with the particular policy directions that have been taken - may be counter-productive in meeting the eventual goal of ending child poverty. The ‘end to child poverty’ has now been translated as meaning having achieved a relative child poverty rate that is ‘among the best (i.e. lowest) in Europe’. The final part of the paper considers what this might involve. To what extent can the policy approaches taken by the current ‘best in Europe’ countries be seen as recipes for success for the UK, or indeed elsewhere?
Uniting Management and Education in Pursuit of Efficiency: F.W. Taylor’s Training Reform Legacy
Authors: Taksa Lucy
Published: March 2013

This historical case study demonstrates the importance of education to the diffusion of management ideas and strategies. The article explains how management and education came to be united in the pursuit of efficiency and how they came to use similar assessment techniques to ensure the achievement of this goal. Documenting F.W. Taylor’s interest in education, it reveals how scientific management, as promoted by management ‘gurus’, consultants, managers, educational administrators and related professionals, came to influence the early twentieth century reform of education and training in both the USA and Australia. It shows how Taylor’s methods, principles and philosophy were transformed into a scholastic program, and how this program was infused into the administration and content of teaching and learning offered in NSW schools, technical colleges, universities and adult education, with long-term implications for the training of managers, students and workers.
Understanding Diverse Outcomes for Working-Class Learning: Conceptualising Class Consciousness as Knowledge Activity
Authors: Sawchuk Peter H.
Published: March 2013

This article poses the question: Why is it that work/life teaches some workers resistance and militancy while it seems to teach others despondency, withdrawal or manic careerism? The significance of this question lies in the decline of working-class community. The question is answered through an exploration of ways of conceptualising working-class learning that account for a diversity of outcomes in terms of class consciousness. The article briefly reviews key dimensions of learning theory, and then, by drawing on two empirical illustrations, it argues that the workplace must be conceptualized as an ensemble of work/life spheres. The argument confirms the prospect for a better understanding of the complex nature of work-learning relations with an emphasis on artifact mediation (i.e. the role of tools and ideas) and participatory structures (i.e. activity systems). Here the content and structural location of working-class cultural practices and dispositions (i.e. habitus) within activity systems are deemed central.
Australian Skill Shortages: How the Howard Government Did Not Change its Mind
Authors: Montague Alan , Bessant Judith
Published: March 2013

This article begins by assessing the evidence that there was, and is, a skill shortage in Australia, and notes that for some years the Howard government initially denied there was a problem of unmet demand for skilled people. It was not until late 2006 that we saw any kind of official acknowledgement of a problem. On 12 October 2006, Prime Minister Howard announced a ‘Skills for the Future’ policy that involved a commitment to spend $837 million over five years, and aimed ‘to help build a more highly skilled and responsive workforce to support Australia’s long-term economic growth’. Acknowledging that policy-making begins with the framing or constitution of a problem, assessments are offered of this federal government’s account of the ‘skill shortage’ problem. The questions posed in this article are: what policy initiatives during the Howard years were designed to address issues of training, and what was their potential for addressing the problem of an apparent shortage of skilled workers in Australia?
Future Prospects for Labour Law — Lessons from the United Kingdom
Authors: Ewing Keith D.
Published: March 2013

Globalisation presents major challenges for governments, and some are now looking to the United Kingdom as an example of how to create global competitiveness, economic efficiency and labour market flexibility in a way that also responds to demands for fairness at work. But what the British approach conceals behind its alluring synthesis of regulation and deregulation is the changing nature of labour law, which is now principally a tool of economic policy, and as such less concerned with its historic mission of promoting social justice. Labour law is thus increasingly concerned principally with the re-commodification of labour, rather than the protection of workers; with promoting the flexibility of labour, rather than the security of citizens; and with controlling rather than encouraging labour organisation as an instrument of industrial democracy (a term about which little is now heard).
The Current Crisis Has a Silver Lining
Authors: Nevile John
Published: March 2013

Capitalism has had many crises and often they have led to improvements in the way it has operated. Two related improvements are predicted as a result of the current crisis. One is the hastening of the decisive defeat of market liberalism. The other is the rehabilitation of fiscal policy as part of the tool kit used to minimise the inherent instability of capitalist economies. After a brief exposition of the core aspects of market liberalism, this article considers the use of fiscal policy in each of the short run and the long run. Policies around the OECD in the last 16 months have already embodied both these improvements, but a similar achievement in the long run will be more difficult. The crowding-out thesis has more appeal when applied to the longer run. However, the empirical evidence does not support crowding out. More generally, economic orthodoxy relies on neo-classical growth theory to support a belief that longer run trends in real economic variables such as output and employment are determined solely by supply side factors. The article uses the authority of Solow and Swan to emphasise that this is an assumption, not the result of any analysis, and that neoclassical growth theory itself assumes that fluctuations in investment over the business cycle will necessarily affect the path of potential output. Moreover, not only is the NAIRU (Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment) determined by the path of investment in physical and human capital, but at a much lower level of unemployment than the conventional wisdom believes.
The Paradox of Post-Communist Trade Unionism: ‘You Can't Want What You Can't Imagine’
Authors: Kallaste Epp , Woolfson Charles
Published: March 2013

This article explores employee attitudes towards trade union membership in the post-communist Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It reports on a comparative empirical social survey of attitudes towards representation. We suggest that in addition to those employees who are union members and those who fall within an identifiable ‘representation gap’, there is a sizeable group of ‘undecided’ employees who could be persuaded to join trade unions, if they could see the relevance of collective representation. We argue that this relatively large group could be specific to the Central and East European countries, and employees who fall within the commonly understood representation gap in other countries can be found within this undecided group in Baltic countries. Trade unions therefore face a considerable challenge in proving their relevance to such employees, a problem that has wider resonances in a European context but may be more difficult to resolve in the Central and East European countries.