Keele University

About: Keele University is a education organization based out in Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Stars. The organization has 11318 authors who have published 26323 publications receiving 894671 citations. The organization is also known as: Keele University.

Governing through Teamwork: Reconstituting Subjectivity in a Call Centre

Abstract: This article focuses on teamworking as a form of governmentality whereby management seeks to govern by distance. This involves mobilizing the support and commitment of employees to teamworking and organizational goals by appealing to their autonomy, unity, sociability and desire for a more enriched work experience. It is the struggle over subjectivity that is of concern here, for teamworking can be seen as a technology that aims to transform individuals into subjects that secure their sense of meaning and significance through working as a team. We will explore through a case study of a call centre in a large building society how a discourse of teamworking has begun to impinge upon individuals so as to shape not only how they behave but also how they think, derive meaning and understand the world. In turn, we consider some of the tensions and inconsistencies of teamworking in relation to the secrecy of pay differentials, and the return to productivity pressures after a period of relaxation and trust. Ultimately the article examines how individuals respond to, agonize over, resist and baulk against the imposition of 'team lives' when this rubs up against what they understand to be their 'private lives'. This will involve considering gender tensions that have so far been largely neglected in relation to call centres and teamworking. Teamworking, we will argue, reflects a will to govern rather than a mechanism of government.

On why the iron K-shell absorption in AGN is not a signature of the local warm/hot intergalactic medium

Abstract: We present a comparison between the 2001 XMM–Newton and 2005 Suzaku observations of the quasar, PG 1211+143, at z= 0.0809. Variability is observed in the 7 keV iron K-shell absorption line (at 7.6 keV in the quasar frame), which is significantly weaker in 2005 than during the 2001 XMM–Newton observation. From a recombination time-scale of 4 × 103 cm−3, while the absorber column is 5 × 1022 < NH < 1 × 1024 cm−2. Thus, the size scale of the absorber is too compact (pc scale) and the surface brightness of the dense gas too high (by 9–10 orders of magnitude) to arise from local hot gas, such as the local bubble, group or warm/hot intergalactic medium (WHIM), as suggested by McKernan, Yaqoob & Reynolds. Instead, the iron K-shell absorption must be associated with an active galactic nucleus (AGN) outflow with mildly relativistic velocities. Finally, we show that the association of the absorption in PG 1211+143 with local hot gas is simply a coincidence, and the comparison between the recession and iron K absorber outflow velocities in other AGN does not reveal a one-to-one kinematic correlation.

Advanced burning stages and fate of 8-10 Mo stars

Abstract: The stellar mass range 8

The marketing of political marketing

Abstract: Has political marketing been over‐marketed? This article – taking a definition of political marketing that (controversially) excludes news management and “spin” control – does not seek to “prove” that it has, merely to suggest that the impact of marketing in politics is not directly analogous to its effectiveness in business because of differences between a business context and a political one. We argue specifically that political marketing programmes can sometimes do harm, and two case studies – from Canada and Britain – are examined to illuminate this. The claim is that marketing is thus less relevant in politics, both at the level of description and prescription. The broader aim of the article is to sensitise students and researchers alike to the differences in commercial and political contexts, differences of which practitioners must be aware if they are to utilise political marketing to its best advantage.

Survival of a brown dwarf after engulfment by a red giant star

Abstract: Original publication can be found at: http://www.nature.com/nature/archive/index.html--Copyright Nature Publishing Group DOI : 10.1038/nature04987