The impact of management style on the employment relations of different sized organisations

Purpose of the research/paper: The views and values of managers are typically noted as being wedded to unitarist or pluralist ideals. This paper disaggregates these views and values by looking at the impact of various managerial styles on employment relations in different sized organisations.
Methodology: Conceptual with applied support from the secondary literature.
Findings: The paper concludes that large organisations confront conditions and contingencies which allow them to make certain choices about employment relations in ways that are not always available to small to medium sized organisations.

'Research as dialogue' and cross-cultural consultations : confronting relations of power

ln this paper, we discuss methodological issues that emerged as we worked through a small empirical research project, 'Engaging Aboriginal students in education through community empowerment'. Recent national policy statements (see, for example, MCEETYA 2000,. NBEET 1995) argue the importance of education/research that keeps the locus of control within the Aboriginal community as a means to further the goal of self-determination and improve educational outcomes. In keeping with these recommendations, our project aimed to challenge assimilationist frameworks and sought to 'empower' members of the local Aboriginal community through participation in the project. 'Research as dialogue' was a guiding principal and a primary aim was to listen actively to all key stakeholders in the remote community setting, particularly to lndigenous parents, students and teachers, in order to identify current strengths and concerns regarding the provision of culturally inclusive schooling. A proposed second stage of the project is to develop, on the basis of these consultations and in collaboration, community-based education projects that engage non-attending Aboriginal students. Here we discuss the consultative processes undertaken in stage one of the project, and critically analyse the difficulties as well as potential strengths of trying to form collaborative partnerships as researchers across cultural differences and with diverse community groups.

'Research as dialogue' and cross cultural consultations : confronting relations of power

The 'rescuing' of Indigenous children (from their communities) through education, and the notions of assimilation associated with that, is an aspect of colonialism that has persisted into the so-called 'post-colonial' era. Recent national policy statements (eg. MCEETYA, 2000; NBEET, 1995) argue the importance of education/research that keeps the locus of control within the Aboriginal community as a means to further the goal of self determination and improve educational outcomes. In this paper, we report on the initial stage of a small empirical research project, Engaging Aboriginal Students In Education Through Community Empowerment.

'Research as dialogue' was a guiding principal and a primary aim was to listen actively to all key stake holders in the remote community setting, particularly to Indigenous parents, teachers and service providers, in order to identify current

strengths and concerns regarding the provision of culturally inclusive schooling; and then, to develop, on the basis of these consultations and in collaboration, community-based education projects that engage non-attending Aboriginal students.

In this paper, we critically analyse the difficulties as well as potential strengths of trying to form collaborative partnerships as researchers, across cultural differences and with diverse community groups. For example, what does 'acknowledging' very different cultural perspectives actually mean to/in this kind of research process? The ways in which relations of power amongst all parties are played out in/through such an approach is also opened up for scrutiny and further discussion.

Legal relations of collectives : belated insights from Hohfeld

Collectives and their interrelations are central to international law. Legal relations between collectives can be analysed with reference to the classic account of Hohfeld without reducing those collectives to mere aggregates of individuals and without recourse to the legal fiction of treating the collective, for example the state, as a quasi-individual. The rights of collectives have been widely if not conclusively explored within international law, but Hohfeld’s ‘field’ approach to legal relations enables the scrutiny of the range of relations, including immunities, liberties, powers, and disabilities, as well as claim-rights and the corresponding obligations in others. The main substantive topics for discussion are the legal relations of collective entities such as peoples and minorities, and closely related matters such as self-determination. Applying Hohfeldian analysis to international law highlights the centrality of international collective entities of which the state represents only one variety. The approach described here therefore takes account of the dethroning of the state within contemporary international law and contributes to the theorization of that development. Nearly one hundred years after its
first appearance, Hohfeld’s analytic scheme continues to generate insights for international law.

Analytic prediction of structural stress-strain relations of microstructured metal

Nanostructured and ultra-fine grained metals have higher strength but extremely limited ductility compared to coarse grained metals. However, their ductility can be greatly improved by introducing a specific range of grain sizes in the microstructures. In the paper, multiscale unit cell approach (UCA) is developed and applied to predict the averaged stress-strain relations of the multiscale microstructure metals. The unit cell models are three-phase structured at different scale lengths of 100 nm, 1 μm and 10 μm with different volume fractions and periodic boundary conditions. The contributions of multi-scale microstructures to the macroscopic structural properties of metals are also studied using a analytic approach—two-step mean-field method (TSMF), where three microstructural parameters are introduced and thus mechanical properties such as strength and ductility are presented as a function of these parameters. For verification of these proposed numerical and theoretical algorithms, the structural properties of the pure nickel with three-grain microstructures are studied and the results from FEA and the proposed theory have good agreement.

Practice chains of production and consumption : mediatized practices across social fields

The argument developed in this paper is that a focus on practice provides some resolutions to methodological problems facing Bourdieuian scholarship in education. In order to develop Bourdieu's work on practice to account for the interactions between practices, this paper presents a conceptualization of practice as chains of production and consumption. The first part of the paper reviews the account of practice offered by Bourdieu both embedded in practice games and as field effects. The second part of the paper introduces practice chains of production and consumption as a way to conceptualize practice by drawing on a case involving print journalists' involvement with policy makers over the course of an Australian policy review. The final section presents a discussion of this conceptualization and highlights the potential of the concept for further research in understanding the processes of educational policy development.

Longitudinal relations of perceived availability of neighborhood sport facilities with physical activity in adolescents: an analysis of potential moderators

Background
Little is known about the longitudinal relations of environment attributes and leisure-time physical activity (PA) in adolescents, and the moderating effects of individual characteristics. This study examined the longitudinal association of the perceived availability of neighborhood sport facilities with leisure-time PA, and the potential moderating effects of age, past PA behavior, and weight status in adolescents.

Methods
Among 20,933 follow-up subjects (60.9% of 34,369 baseline subjects), 9993 from 32 Hong Kong secondary schools were successfully matched with baseline (mean duration 16 months; SD 1.7) and had complete information. At baseline and follow-up, respondents reported their leisure-time PA, weight, height, and the presence of sport facilities in the neighborhood.

Results
Increased perceived availability of sport facilities from baseline to follow-up predicted more leisure-time PA at follow-up (β = 1.029; 95% CI: 1.011–1.047) overall. This effect was modified by baseline PA, with a significant effect observed only among those who had engaged in leisure-time PA more than 3 times a week.

Conclusions
Increasing awareness of neighborhood sport facilities or building more such facilities may help active adolescents maintain or increase their leisure-time PA. However, more comprehensive multilevel interventions that aim at enhancing potential social, personal, and environmental PA-related factors may be needed to motivate inactive adolescents.

Formulation of monodisperse oil-in-water emulsions loaded with ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol by microchannel emulsification: Insights of production characteristics and stability

Nutritional deficiencies of ergocalciferol (VD2) and cholecalciferol (VD3) cause skeletal deformations. The primary aim of this study was to encapsulate VD2 and VD3 in food-grade oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions by using microchannel emulsification (MCE). Silicon asymmetric straight-through microchannel (MC) array consisting of 10 313 channels, each having an 11 × 104 μm microslot connected to a 10 μm circular microholes. 1% (w/w) sodium cholate or Tween 20 in water was used as the continuous phase, while 0.5% (w/w) of each VD2 and VD3 in different oils served as the dispersed phase. Monodisperse O/W emulsions with Sauter mean diameters of 28 to 32 μm and relative span factor widths below 0.3 were formulated via an asymmetric straight-through MC array under appropriate operating conditions. The monodisperse O/W emulsions stabilised with Tween 20 remained stable for >30 days with encapsulation efficiencies (EEs) of VD2 and VD3 of above 70% at 4 and 25 °C. In contrast, those stabilised with sodium cholate had stability of >30 days with their EEs of over 70% only at 25 °C.