Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Research uncovers continued union decline and increasing availability of flexible working arrangements since the late 1990’s

Union representation in British workplaces has continued to decline since 1998, though the rate of decline has slowed compared with recent decades. There has also been a substantial increase in the availability of flexible working arrangements including home-working, term-time only working, flexi-time and job sharing.

These conclusions are based on a wealth of evidence from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (2004), which is co-sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, Economic and Social Research Council, Policy Studies Institute and ACAS. They appear today in a first findings booklet, Inside the Workplace.

The survey is the largest and most up to date of its kind in Britain. The results are based on face-to-face interviews with around 3,200 managers and nearly 1,000 worker representatives across Britain. Over 20,000 employees in those same workplaces returned completed questionnaires. The large sample size and high response rate gives a clear indication of the reliability of the findings.

Becky Gammon | alfa
Further information:
http://www.esrc.ac.uk

Im Focus: Spider silk key to new bone-fixing composite

University of Connecticut researchers have created a biodegradable composite made of silk fibers that can be used to repair broken load-bearing bones without the complications sometimes presented by other materials.

Repairing major load-bearing bones such as those in the leg can be a long and uncomfortable process.

Im Focus: Writing and deleting magnets with lasers

Study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces is the outcome of an international effort that included teams from Dresden and Berlin in Germany, and the US.

Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) together with colleagues from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the University of Virginia...

Im Focus: Gamma-ray flashes from plasma filaments

Novel highly efficient and brilliant gamma-ray source: Based on model calculations, physicists of the Max PIanck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg propose a novel method for an efficient high-brilliance gamma-ray source. A giant collimated gamma-ray pulse is generated from the interaction of a dense ultra-relativistic electron beam with a thin solid conductor. Energetic gamma-rays are copiously produced as the electron beam splits into filaments while propagating across the conductor. The resulting gamma-ray energy and flux enable novel experiments in nuclear and fundamental physics.

The typical wavelength of light interacting with an object of the microcosm scales with the size of this object. For atoms, this ranges from visible light to...

Im Focus: Basel researchers succeed in cultivating cartilage from stem cells

Stable joint cartilage can be produced from adult stem cells originating from bone marrow. This is made possible by inducing specific molecular processes occurring during embryonic cartilage formation, as researchers from the University and University Hospital of Basel report in the scientific journal PNAS.

Certain mesenchymal stem/stromal cells from the bone marrow of adults are considered extremely promising for skeletal tissue regeneration. These adult stem...

Im Focus: Like a wedge in a hinge

Researchers lay groundwork to tailor drugs for new targets in cancer therapy

In the fight against cancer, scientists are developing new drugs to hit tumor cells at so far unused weak points. Such a “sore spot” is the protein complex...