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Dangerous Cocktail
Blending booze with work may be equal parts trouble and regret

Everybody knows boozin' at work is a definite no-no if you want to stay out of the unemployment line, but what about having a beer or a glass of wine during a workday lunch or happy hour? It may seem harmless, but a new Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., study shows alcohol consumption in and around the workplace increases the risk of harassment.

The researchers examined possible links between alcohol use and gender harassment – a form of sexual harassment that involves offensive or degrading remarks and actions, usually directed at women by men. While sexual favors are not elicited, such behavior creates a hostile workplace environment for women and has been deemed unlawful in the courts under current federal statutes.

No sector of the workforce is immune, as shown by recent news stories about gender harassment claims within the U.S. Air Force Academy. The end result can be stiff fines for an organization, disciplinary action or firing of employees engaged in such behavior and lost productivity and even job resignation of those being harassed.

"The survey's findings have important implications for the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace," says study co-author Samuel Bacharach, McKelvey-Grant professor and director of the Smithers Institute at Cornell. "They suggest that sexual harassment prevention policies may be less effective in work contexts characterized by a strong and permissive drinking culture. In such environments, it may be more useful to focus prevention efforts on changing employee perceptions about the acceptability of drinking during or around working hours."

The researchers surveyed 1,353 blue-collar and service workers (including 236 women) employed in 52 work units and represented by seven different unions in the manufacturing, service and construction sectors. The study's findings showed that women were at greater risk of gender harassment when they worked in places where heavy drinking, particularly on the part of their male colleagues, was tolerated. Specifically, the study found a more-than-twofold increase in the incidence of gender harassment experienced by women for every additional alcoholic drink consumed by the men in their work units during or around working hours.

— Cornell University

Cool is Hot in Mobile Technology

The hot new trend in cell phones is actually cooler than you think. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison have developed a device that can significantly improve the quality of the transmitted signal using less battery power. The bottom line: a cooler phone.

"When you've been talking on a cell phone for a long time, you can feel how hot it gets," says Zhenqiang Ma, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW-Madison. "This kind of overheating has always been a barrier to improving wireless communications."

According to Ma, wireless communications devices, such as cell phones and cordless computer keyboards, rely on a power amplifier. The amplifier, composed of tiny energy cells, is responsible for sending signals. Because the power amplifier does the heavy lifting when it comes to communicating via a mobile phone, it also consumes the most battery power. This power drain, as Ma explains, poses a challenge to improving cell phone capabilities.

Recently, Ma and his students found a way to significantly reduce the rising temperatures inside amplifiers. The solution? Rearrange the energy cells within a power amplifier so that any heat produced dissipates uniformly, rather than moving toward the center. The nifty switch reduces the overall temperature, which enhances overall performance.

Prototypes the UW engineers have created confirm that this new structure can increase the output of the power amplifier while reducing its input – energy from an internal battery. The end result could mean cell phones that receive more data, reach towers farther away and stay powered longer, says Ma.

But don't expect to see the cooler cell phone in stores just yet. Ma, a cell phone user himself, predicts the prototype will take at least 10 years to become the industry standard for any type of wireless communications device.

— Jeremy Kuhar