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Purpose - The purpose of this article is to assess the ability of formal equal employment opportunity (EEO) programmes and workplace agreement making to facilitate work and family balance for women workers in Australia.Design methodology approach - This article uses documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews in six Australian organisations that are required to develop formal EEO programmes.Findings - Formal EEO programmes and agreement making are limited in their ability to promote work and family-friendly arrangements at the workplace. Informal arrangements and managerial discretion are important in realising work and care balance.Research limitations implications - The paper is Australian based, and the case studies were confined to six organisations, which restricts the findings.Practical implications - Leave and work arrangements need to be required within agreements and EEO programmes. Most programmes gravitate towards minimum requirements, hence, it is important to ensure that these minimum requirements provide for work and care reconciliation. Programmes beyond the workplace, such as funded childcare, are important in this context.Originality value - The article highlights that formal mechanisms cannot achieve work and care reconciliation for women workers if they are built upon very limited minimum requirements, are voluntary and are dependent upon a bargaining process at the workplace.

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of availability, both empirically and theoretically, in the context of three Swedish organisations, and identifies the structural influences on availability patterns for work and family.Design methodology approach - The article is based on quantitative case studies using employer records and an employee questionnaire in three organisations. Multivariate descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression are used to illustrate and analyse patterns of availability for work and family.Findings - The descriptive data demonstrate the influence of the organisational context and type of production process, as well as gender, on availability patterns. Patterns of work availability appeared to differ across the organisations to a greater extent than patterns of family availability, which were highly gendered. The logistic regression results indicated that: occupation was a significant influence on both temporal and spatial availability patterns across the organisations; gender was the most significant influence on time spent on household work and part-time working for parents with young children; age of employees and age of employees' children were the most significant factors influencing the use of time off work for family.Research limitations implications - Analysis limited to case studies. More extensive quantitative research would be needed to make empirical generalisations. Qualitative research would be needed to establish whether and how employees are able to make use of different availability patterns to improve their work-life balance.Originality value - The concept of availability is a new way of trying to capture and analyse tensions in people's everyday lives as they try to manage multiple demands.

Aim: Biodiversity loss and climate-driven ecosystem modification are leading to substantial changes in forest structure and function. However, the effects of diversity on demographic responses to the environment are poorly understood. We tested the diversity hypothesis (measured through functional diversity) and the mass ratio hypothesis (measured through functional identity) in relation to tree growth, tree mortality and sapling abundance. We sought to determine whether functional diversity underlies demographic responses to environmental variation in European forests. Location: Europe (Spain, Germany, Wallonia, Finland and Sweden). Methods: We used data from five European national forest inventories from boreal to Mediterranean biomes (c. 700,000 trees in 54,000 plots and 143 tree species) and the main forest types across Europe (i.e. from needle-leaved evergreen forests to broad-leaved deciduous forests). For each forest type, we applied maximum likelihood techniques to quantify the relative importance of stand structure, climate and diversity (i.e. functional diversity and functional identity) as determinants of growth, mortality and sapling abundance. We also tested whether demographic responses to environmental conditions (including stand density, evapotranspiration and temperature anomalies) varied with functional diversity. Results: Our results suggest that functional diversity has a positive effect on sapling abundance and growth rates in forests across Europe, while no effect was observed on tree mortality. Functional identity has a strong effect on mortality and sapling abundance, with greater mortality rates in forests dominated by needle-leaved individuals and a greater abundance of saplings in forests dominated by broad-leaved individuals. Furthermore, we observed that functional diversity modified the effects of stand density on demographic responses in Mediterranean forests and the influence of evapotranspiration and temperature anomalies in forests widely distributed across Europe. Main conclusion: Our results suggest that functional diversity may play a key role in forest dynamics through complementarity mechanisms, as well as by modulating demographic responses to environmental variation.

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to assess whether tele-nursing in Scotland (NHS24), when compared with traditional face-to-face nursing, facilitates greater employee control over working time and therefore a potentially better work-life balance.Design methodology approach - The article draws on evidence from two independent research projects; a survey of 64 ward nurses and midwives, which involved face-to-face interviews; and a field study of tele-nursing in a large site in Scotland, using interviews and observations of 15 nurse advisors or tele-nurses.Findings - Three elements of work organisation are central in shaping nurses' working hours and their control over the balance between their work and their home life: the management of working hours; the degree of mutual dependency of nurses within teams; and the nature of patient care.Research limitations implications - The two pieces of research reported offer a strong basis for comparative study. However, the two projects were designed independently, though research questions overlapped and one researcher conducted the field work in both settings; there is an imbalance in the number of interviews conducted in each setting; and the nurse advisor interviewees are of the same clinical grade, whereas a variety of grades and clinical areas are represented among the hospital nurse interviewees.Originality value - This is the first study of work-life balance amongst tele-nurses. The research demonstrates that call centre work has rationalised, depersonalised and yet enabled more \"control\" by nurses over their work-life balance, while paradoxically offering less autonomy in their task environment. In conventional work settings professional values make it difficult for nurses to disengage from the workplace.

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of different forms of organisational representation on the provision of work-life balance employment policies.Design methodology approach - The article uses on-site semi-structured interviews with employees, HR and line managers and trade union representatives in four case studies as well as survey responses from a total of 17 institutions in the financial services sector.Findings - Employees do influence work-life balance issues in the financial services sector, and work-life balance initiatives had greater breadth, codification and quality where independent unions were recognised. In all cases however, the extent of departure from minimal statutory levels of provision was not great.Research limitations implications - The nature of the study and its focus on Scotland may limit the generalisability of the findings into other sectors or regions.Practical implications - In light of the evolving work-life balance legislative framework, this article should be of practical interest to trade unions, practitioners and academics. It demonstrates that organisations and unions need to retain and develop a focus on work-life balance applications.Originality value - The article indicates the prevalence of management control of the work-life balance agenda and management's discretion in the operation of work-life issues. Employees and their representatives accepted this control, and their private individualised responsibility for balancing work and life, without challenge. These results inform current understanding of how work-life balance legislation, based on a voluntarist agenda, translates into practice.

Background Arapaima gigas (Schinz, 1822) is the largest freshwater scaled fish in the world, and an emerging species for tropical aquaculture development. Conservation of the species, and the expansion of aquaculture requires the development of genetic tools to study polymorphism, differentiation, and stock structure. This study aimed to investigate genomic polymorphism through ddRAD sequencing, in order to identify a panel of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and to simultaneously assess genetic diversity and structure in wild (from rivers Amazon, Solimões, Tocantins and Araguaia) and captive populations. Results Compared to many other teleosts, the degree of polymorphism in A. gigas was low with only 2.3% of identified RAD-tags (135 bases long) containing SNPs. A panel of 393 informative SNPs was identified and screened across the five populations. Higher genetic diversity indices (number of polymorphic loci and private alleles, Shannon’s Index and HO) were found in populations from the Amazon and Solimões, intermediate levels in Tocantins and Captive, and very low levels in the Araguaia population. These results likely reflect larger population sizes from less urbanized environments in the Amazon basin compared to Araguaia. Populations were significantly differentiated with pairwise FST values ranging from 0.086 (Amazon × Solimões) to 0.556 (Amazon × Araguaia). Mean pairwise relatedness among individuals was significant in all populations (P < 0.01), reflecting a degree of inbreeding possibly due to severe depletion of natural stocks, the species sedentary behaviour and possible sampling biases. Although Mantel test was not significant (P = 0.104; R2 = 0.65), Bayesian analysis in STRUCTURE and discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) showed populations of Amazon and Solimões to be genetically differentiated from Araguaia, with Tocantins comprising individuals from both identified stocks. Conclusions This relatively rapid genotyping by sequencing approach proved to be successful in delineating arapaima stocks. The approach and / or SNP panels identified should prove valuable for more detailed genetic studies of arapaima populations, including the elucidation of the genetic status of described discrete morphotypes and aid in delivery of conservation programs to maintain genetic diversity in reservoirs across the Amazon region.

Understanding the immune response of fish to Renibacterium salmoninarum (Rs.), the causative agent of bacterial kidney disease (BKD), would help in the development of a vaccine against the disease. The aim of the present study was to examine the protection and antibody response of rainbow trout following intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of either a live virulent (NCIMB 1113) or an avirulent (NCIMB 1111) isolate of Rs. and subsequently, also after a following challenge with the virulent strain. Following subsequent challenge with Rs.1113, fish initially injected with Rs.1113 demonstrated a higher rate of survival and higher antibody levels with a longer duration compared to fish initially immunized with Rs.1111. In addition, higher numbers of mortalities were observed in fish initially immunized with the avirulent isolate Rs.1111 than fish injected with Rs.1113 and phosphate buffered saline (PBS) injected group.

An Erratum to this article was published on 04 June 2018.

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to consider why work-life balance has become a major issue, and the likely outcomes of the widespread dissatisfaction with current work schedules. Design/methodology/approach - The article reviews international evidence on hours of work and time use, and the academic literature on employees' attitudes towards their hours of work, and perceptions and complaints about work-life imbalances. Findings - Working time has not lengthened and complaints about time pressure are unrelated to hours actually worked. The sources of the widespread dissatisfaction with current work schedules will lie in a combination of other trends - increased labour market participation by women, work intensification, the spread of feelings of job insecurity, more work being done at odd hours, the spread of new information and communication technologies, free time increasing more slowly than spending power and aspirations, and relatively long hours becoming most common among employees (and the self-employed) in higher status jobs. An outcome is unlikely to be a general downward trend in hours worked on account of the substantial opportunity costs that would often be incurred by employees, and because some (mainly middle class) employees have access to a number of effective coping strategies. Research limitations/implications - Nearly all the evidence considered (and available) is from Western countries. Practical implications - Regulation of working time with the aim of delivering more acceptable work-life balances needs to deliver flexibility (at employees' discretion) rather than any standard solution. Originality/value - The article offers a synthesis of evidence from sources that are rarely drawn together - mainly labour market research, and leisure studies.

The Primula sibirica group is a set of approximately a dozen Arctic, taxonomically unrelated plant species that share a similar disjunct distribution on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the northernmost part of the Baltic Sea. The origin of this phylogeographic pattern is not known. It has been suggested, first, that the species arrived after the last glaciation from the White Sea, second, that they are relicts of once larger populations or, third, that they arrived via jump dispersal. One of the species is the polyploid Creeping alkali grass, Puccinellia phryganodes, which is critically endangered in Finland. Here we used microsatellite markers to study seven extant and three extinct populations from coasts of the Bothnian Bay and the Arctic Sea (N = 297). We estimated the genetic diversity in the study populations and applied principal component analysis and Bayesian and coalescence methods to examine their population genetic structure and evolutionary history. We found that the endangered Bothnian Bay population still harbors a reasonably high amount of genetic diversity and is differentiated from the geographically closest populations. We show that Puccinellia phryganodes is more likely a climatic relict in the Bothnian Bay than a long-distance disperser and that the endangered southern population should be considered as an evolutionary significant unit rather than a mere representative of the main population.