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The current use of two sets of units in the UK continues to be a source of muddle and confusion. Young people are taught metric (SI) units in school but, in the outside world, still have to contend with units such as inches, feet, pounds, stones and miles. Specialist teachers and practitioners of the sciences are not blameless. This paper considers the fact that some units commonly used in physics, astronomy, and physics education are unnecessary, involve time-wasting conversions and frequently lead to confusion or even error. This unsatisfactory situation is illustrated by examples, and suggestions are made for a radical improvement.

DC technology has gained considerable interest in the medium voltage applications due to the benefits over the AC counterpart. However, to utilize the full capacity of this development, the selection of a suitable power electronic converter topology is a key aspect. From the pool of voltage source converters (VSC's), it is unclear which topology is suitable for multi-megawatt applications at medium voltage dc (MVdc) levels. To address this, the paper proposes a selection guideline based on reliability and optimum redundancy levels of VSCs for MVdc applications. This will be combined with other functional factors such as operational efficiency and return-on-investment. Three candidate multi-level topologies namely three-level neutral point clamped converter (3L-NPC), modular multi-level converter (MMC) and cascaded 3L-NPC (which is being used for the first MVdc link in the U.K.) have been evaluated over two-level-VSC from $\pm$ 10 kV to $\pm$ 50 kV. Results show that with the increase of MVdc voltage level MMC shows better performance whereas at low MVdc voltage levels 3L-NPC is the prominent topology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that job retention should be a central aim and practice of human resource management (HRM). Set against the global COVID‐19 crisis, theoretical insights are drawn from strategic HRM planning and the economics of 'labour hoarding' to consider the potential benefits of workforce furloughing. Furlough has been supported in the UK by the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which represents a novel, but temporary, state‐led shift from the UK's market‐orientated restructuring regime. We argue that the withdrawal of state‐financed furlough may mean a quick return in UK firms to the management of redundancy. Yet, if the crisis is to generate any benefit it must create the conditions for a more collaborative HRM that delivers for workers as well as business, with job retention as a core priority. While change in this direction will mean confronting deep‐rooted challenges—such as job security, good work and worker voice—such change remains vital in creating better and healthier workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between occupational community and restructuring at a UK steelworks. Through historic and contemporary experiences, restructuring has become an internalized feature of the steelworker identity. Zittoun and Gillespie's framework of proximal and distal experiences is adapted to analyse the internalization process. The article argues that experiential resources associated with restructuring are transmitted via the occupational community, forming a part of a collective memory of workplace change. These experiences relate to the historical precedence of restructuring, the role of trade unions in accepting the inevitability of downsizing and prior personal and vicarious experiences of redundancy. The findings build on debates around the determinants of an occupational community, highlighting the role of 'marginality' and how experiences of restructuring bind steelworkers to a broader community of fate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a survey data of UK firms that engaged in downsizing, this paper explores the link between downsizing and innovation determinants. We suggest that the relationship between downsizing and innovation determinants is contingent upon the speed of implementing the downsizing and the severity of downsizing. Overall, the results confirm our general proposition and shed new light on the relationship between downsizing and innovation enhancers, and barriers to innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports findings of an exploratory study examining the impact of intermittent partner absence on couple relationships and family life. Drawing on data collected through in-depth interviews with seafarers and their partners, it considers the period when the seafarer is home on leave to examine the salience of the breadwinner role to contemporary masculine identity and explore and contrast the experiences of seafarers at home on leave to that of unemployed men. The article concludes that during the seafarers leave periods, the experience of seafaring families has many parallels with that of unemployed men and their families. While seafarers do not lose their ‘breadwinner’ role, they experience considerable problems associated with loss of role during their leave period, and frequently experience a sense of ‘role displacement’ where they feel redundant, unnecessary and essentially ‘outsiders’ in relation to their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on information and consultation of employees regulations in Great Britain. Call for legislative support for the participation of workers in decisionmaking in the enterprise; Voluntarist orientation of the Regulations.

Redundancy, delayering, downsizing and various other forms of organizational change, often accompanied by the managerial fad of the moment, have become increasingly prevalent over the last ten years. This paper is based on the results of a four-year University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST)-Chartered Management Institute (CMV research programme (the Quality of Working Life Project) that was designed to explore the changing nature of managerial work in the UK and also to assess the impact of different forms of organizational change on managers' perceptions of the organizations they work within. The analysis reported here indicates clearly that some forms of change (notably redundancy and delayering) have had particularly damaging effects on managers' experiences in the workplace and ultimately on their behaviors within and beyond their organizations. The objectives of this paper are, first, to paint a picture of recent organizational change in the UK based on the responses of members of the CMI, second, to explore how change has affected managers ` perceptions of their organizations and their working lives and, third, to explore if different forms of change (particularly redundancy and delayering) have had a differential impact on managers' perceptions of their organizations "as a place to work". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details the Great Britain High Court case Bank of Credit and Commerce International v. Ali and others. 'Stigma claims' arising out of the former bank employees' allegations that they have been unable to find work because of the tarnished reputation of their former employee.

The apparatus of legal principles we use has, far more than we realise, transformed the way we think about the control of private power in the name of social justice. The actual sort of equity that the legal and political system is searching for is not reflected in our major political theories, nor indeed in the official rhetoric of many such systems themselves. The reason for this mismatch has to do with the need to accomodate change – a space opened by the law and unacknowledged by theory. This article sets out the current theoretical frameworks within which the regulation of private power is analysed, and it contrasts these with a different approach to the problem of justice at work in employment and corporate law that does not find its way into theory. Once that approach is given a formulation, its place within a larger theory of justice is proposed, and its wider implications for the relationship between state and civil society are investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to investigate the self-reported well-being of employees facing organizational change, and the effect of an intervention. It was a controlled intervention study. Subjects were allocated to study and control groups, and brief individual counselling was offered to the subjects in the study groups. Questionnaire measures were administered before and after counselling (a 3-month interval), and non-counselled subjects also completed questionnaires at the same times. The setting was 15 estate offices in an urban local authority Housing Department. Subjects comprised the total workforce of the Housing Management division: 193 employees, male and female, aged 22–62 years, facing compulsory competitive tendering between 1994–97. Main outcome measures were baseline and comparative measures of psychological morbidity, including the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI). Questionnaire response rates were 72% and 47% on first and second occasions respectively. The uptake of counselling was 37%. In comparison with (1) the UK norms for the OSI and (2) the norms for a similar occupational group, this group of workers were under more work-related pressure and their self-reported health was markedly poorer. They were not however at a disadvantage in terms of coping strategies. Those accepting the offer of counselling were subject to greater levels of work stress, had poorer self-reported health and markedly lower levels of job satisfaction than those who did not. Questionnaire scores were not significantly different before and after counselling, giving no evidence of treatment effects on symptomatology. However, almost all subjects rated counselling as having been extremely helpful. This study suggests that adverse effects on staff facing organizational change may be ameliorated by improved management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The primary care landscape is changing. Primary care trusts are reconfiguring in an effort to reduce management costs by 15% and to divide services into purchaser and provider arms. These changes are affecting staff at all levels within PCTs and in some organizations hundreds of jobs are at risk. This article explains the process of reconfiguration and outlines your options if your post is at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]