University of Bedfordshire

About: University of Bedfordshire is a education organization based out in Luton, Bedford, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Social work. The organization has 3860 authors who have published 6079 publications receiving 143448 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Luton.

Cell transformation assays for prediction of carcinogenic potential: state of the science and future research needs

Abstract: Copyright @ 2011 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Psychosocial Hazards in UK Universities: Adopting a Risk Assessment Approach

Abstract: Drawing on the findings of a recent national survey, this article examines the extent to which higher education institutions in the United Kingdom meet the minimum standards recommended by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for the management of work-related stressors. A comparison is also made between the average weekly working hours reported in the current survey with those found in two previous studies of the higher education sector (1998 and 2004). A sample of 9,740 academic and academic-related employees working in higher education institutions in the UK completed a measure of seven job-related stressors (or psychosocial hazards) (that is, demands, control, support from colleagues and managers, interpersonal relationships, role clarity and involvement in organisational change). With one exception (job control), levels of job-related stressors in the higher education sector exceeded the benchmarks stipulated by the HSE. Stressors relating to change, role, job demands and managerial support were particularly high. Recommendations made by the HSE for interim and longer-term targets to be achieved for the management of each stressor category are provided. Findings also revealed that average working hours remain high in the sector, with many employees continuing to exceed the weekly limit set by the UK Working Time Directive. The utility of the HSE approach in higher education institutions and ways in which the sector might work towards meeting the HSE management standards and consequently enhance employee well-being are considered.

Effectuation and home-based online business entrepreneurs

Abstract: This article explores effectual processes within home-based online businesses. Our empirical evidence provides a number of refinements to the concept of effectuation in this specific domain. First, the ubiquity of non-proprietary online trading platforms encourages the adoption of effectual approaches and removes the importance of forming proprietary strategic alliances and pre-commitments. Second, the notion of affordable loss – a central tenet of effectuation – should be extended beyond the notion of economic to social affordable loss, including loss of status and reputation, and finally, home-based online businesses allow effectuation to be associated with low levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and experience.

Opening and Closing

Abstract: The erosion of an image not only removes all structures that cannot contain the structuring element but it also shrinks all the other ones. The search for an operator recovering most structures lost by the erosion leads to the definition of the morphological opening operator. The principle consists in dilating the image previously eroded using the same structuring element. In general, not all structures are recovered. For example, objects completely destroyed by the erosion are not recovered at all. This behaviour is at the very basis of the filtering properties of the opening operator: image structures are selectively filtered out, the selection depending on the shape and size of the SE. The dual operator of the morphological opening is the morphological closing. Both operators are at the basis of the morphological approach to image filtering developed in Chap. 8.