258 resultados para Princípio vital


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Our brief is to investigate the role of community and lifestyle in the making of a globally successful knowledge city region. Our approach is essentially pragmatic. We start by broadly examining knowledge-based urban development from a number of different perspectives. The first view is historical. In this context knowledge work and knowledge workers are seen as vital parts of a new emergent mode of production reliant on the continual production of abstract knowledge. We briefly develop this perspective to encompass the work of Richard Florida who has, notedly, claimed: “Wherever talent goes, innovation, creativity, and economic growth are sure to follow.” Our next perspective examines concepts of knowledge and modes of its production to discover knowledge is not an unchanging object but a human activity that changes in form and content through history. The suggestion emerges that not only is the production of contemporary ‘knowledge’ organised in a specific (and new) manner but also the output of this networked production is a particular type of knowledge (i.e. techné). The third perspective locates knowledge production and its workers in the contemporary urban context. As such, it co-ordinates the knowledge city in the increasingly global structure of cities and develops a typology of different groups of knowledge workers in their preferred urban environment(s). We see emerging here a distinctive geography of knowledge production. It is an urban phenomenon. There is, in short, something about the nature of cities that knowledge workers find particularly attractive. In the next, essentially anthropological, perspective we start to explore the needs and desires of the individual knowledge worker. Beyond the needs basic to any modern human household an attempt is made to deduce, from a base understanding of knowledge work as mental labour, the compensatory cultural needs of the knowledge worker when not at work - and the expression of these needs in the urban fabric. Our final perspective consists of two case studies. In a review of the experiences of Austin, Texas and Singapore’s one-north precinct we collect empirical data on, respectively, a knowledge city that has sustained itself for over 50 years and an urban precinct newly launched into the global market for knowledge work and knowledge workers. Interwoven The Role of Community and Lifestyle in the Making of a Knowledge City Urban Research Program 8 through all perspectives, in the form of apposite citation, is that of ‘expert opinion’ gathered in a rudimentary poll of academic and industry sources. This opinion appears in text boxes while details of the survey can be found in Appendix A. In the conclusion of the report we interpret the wide range of evidence gathered above in a policy frame. It is our hope this report will leave the reader with a clearer picture of the decisive organisational, infrastructural, aesthetic and social dimensions of a knowledge precinct.

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Quantitative behaviour analysis requires the classification of behaviour to produce the basic data. In practice, much of this work will be performed by multiple observers, and maximising inter-observer consistency is of particular importance. Another discipline where consistency in classification is vital is biological taxonomy. A classification tool of great utility, the binary key, is designed to simplify the classification decision process and ensure consistent identification of proper categories. We show how this same decision-making tool - the binary key - can be used to promote consistency in the classification of behaviour. The construction of a binary key also ensures that the categories in which behaviour is classified are complete and non-overlapping. We discuss the general principles of design of binary keys, and illustrate their construction and use with a practical example from education research.

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As a part of vital infrastructure and transportation networks, bridge structures must function safely at all times. However, due to heavier and faster moving vehicular loads and function adjustment, such as Busway accommodation, many bridges are now operating at an overload beyond their design capacity. Additionally, the huge renovation and replacement costs always make the infrastructure owners difficult to undertake. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is set to assess condition and foresee probable failures of designated bridge(s), so as to monitor the structural health of the bridges. The SHM systems proposed recently are incorporated with Vibration-Based Damage Detection (VBDD) techniques, Statistical Methods and Signal processing techniques and have been regarded as efficient and economical ways to solve the problem. The recent development in damage detection and condition assessment techniques based on VBDD and statistical methods are reviewed. The VBDD methods based on changes in natural frequencies, curvature/strain modes, modal strain energy (MSE) dynamic flexibility, artificial neural networks (ANN) before and after damage and other signal processing methods like Wavelet techniques and empirical mode decomposition (EMD) / Hilbert spectrum methods are discussed here.

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Background The accurate measurement of Cardiac output (CO) is vital in guiding the treatment of critically ill patients. Invasive or minimally invasive measurement of CO is not without inherent risks to the patient. Skilled Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nursing staff are in an ideal position to assess changes in CO following therapeutic measures. The USCOM (Ultrasonic Cardiac Output Monitor) device is a non-invasive CO monitor whose clinical utility and ease of use requires testing. Objectives To compare cardiac output measurement using a non-invasive ultrasonic device (USCOM) operated by a non-echocardiograhically trained ICU Registered Nurse (RN), with the conventional pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) using both thermodilution and Fick methods. Design Prospective observational study. Setting and participants Between April 2006 and March 2007, we evaluated 30 spontaneously breathing patients requiring PAC for assessment of heart failure and/or pulmonary hypertension at a tertiary level cardiothoracic hospital. Methods SCOM CO was compared with thermodilution measurements via PAC and CO estimated using a modified Fick equation. This catheter was inserted by a medical officer, and all USCOM measurements by a senior ICU nurse. Mean values, bias and precision, and mean percentage difference between measures were determined to compare methods. The Intra-Class Correlation statistic was also used to assess agreement. The USCOM time to measure was recorded to assess the learning curve for USCOM use performed by an ICU RN and a line of best fit demonstrated to describe the operator learning curve. Results In 24 of 30 (80%) patients studied, CO measures were obtained. In 6 of 30 (20%) patients, an adequate USCOM signal was not achieved. The mean difference (±standard deviation) between USCOM and PAC, USCOM and Fick, and Fick and PAC CO were small, −0.34 ± 0.52 L/min, −0.33 ± 0.90 L/min and −0.25 ± 0.63 L/min respectively across a range of outputs from 2.6 L/min to 7.2 L/min. The percent limits of agreement (LOA) for all measures were −34.6% to 17.8% for USCOM and PAC, −49.8% to 34.1% for USCOM and Fick and −36.4% to 23.7% for PAC and Fick. Signal acquisition time reduced on average by 0.6 min per measure to less than 10 min at the end of the study. Conclusions In 80% of our cohort, USCOM, PAC and Fick measures of CO all showed clinically acceptable agreement and the learning curve for operation of the non-invasive USCOM device by an ICU RN was found to be satisfactorily short. Further work is required in patients receiving positive pressure ventilation.

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Both in developed and developing economies, major public funding is invested in civil infrastructure assets. Efficiency and comfort level of expected and demanded living standards are largely dependant on the management strategies of these assets. Buildings are one of the major & vital assets, which need to be maintained primarily to ensure its functionality by effective & efficient delivery of services and to optimize economic benefits. Not withstanding, public building infrastructure is not considered in Infrastructure report card published by Australian Infrastructure Report Card Alliance Partners (2001). The reason appears to be not having enough data to rate public building infrastructure. American Infrastructure Report Card (2001) gave “School Buildings” ‘d-’ rating, which is below ‘poor’. For effective asset management of building infrastructure, a need emerged to optimise the budget for managing assets, to cope up with increased user expectations, to response effectively to possible asset failures, to deal with ageing of assets and aging populations and to treat other scenarios including technology advancement and non-asset solutions. John (Asset Management, 2001) suggests that in the area of asset management worldwide, UK, Australia and New Zealand are leading.

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Principal Topic Although corporate entrepreneurship is of vital importance for long-term firm survival and growth (Zahra and Covin, 1995), researchers still struggle with understanding how to manage corporate entrepreneurship activities. Corporate entrepreneurship consists of three parts: innovation, venturing, and renewal processes (Guth and Ginsberg, 1990). Innovation refers to the development of new products, venturing to the creation of new businesses, and renewal to redefining existing businesses (Sharma, and Chrisman, 1999; Verbeke et al., 2007). Although there are many studies focusing on one of these aspects (cf. Burgelman, 1985; Huff et al., 1992), it is very difficult to compare the outcomes of these studies due to differences in contexts, measures, and methodologies. This is a significant lack in our understanding of CE, as firms engage in all three aspects of CE, making it important to compare managerial and organizational antecedents of innovation, venturing and renewal processes. Because factors that may enhance venturing activities may simultaneously inhibit renewal activities. The limited studies that did empirically compare the individual dimensions (cf. Zahra, 1996; Zahra et al., 2000; Yiu and Lau, 2008; Yiu et al., 2007) generally failed to provide a systematic explanation for potential different effects of organizational antecedents on innovation, venturing, and renewal. With this study we aim to investigate the different effects of structural separation and social capital on corporate entrepreneurship activities. The access to existing and the development of new knowledge has been deemed of critical importance in CE-activities (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1999; Covin and Miles, 2007; Katila and Ahuja, 2002). Developing new knowledge can be facilitated by structurally separating corporate entrepreneurial units from mainstream units (cf. Burgelman, 1983; Hill and Rothaermel, 2003; O'Reilly and Tushman, 2004). Existing knowledge and resources are available through networks of social relationships, defined as social capital (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Yiu and Lau, 2008). Although social capital has primarily been studied at the organizational level, it might be equally important at top management level (Belliveau et al., 1996). However, little is known about the joint effects of structural separation and integrative mechanisms to provide access to social capital on corporate entrepreneurship. Could these integrative mechanisms for example connect the separated units to facilitate both knowledge creation and sharing? Do these effects differ for innovation, venturing, and renewal processes? Are the effects different for organizational versus top management team integration mechanisms? Corporate entrepreneurship activities have for example been suggested to take place at different levels. Whereas innovation is suggested to be a more bottom-up process, strategic renewal is a more top-down process (Floyd and Lane, 2000; Volberda et al., 2001). Corporate venturing is also a more bottom-up process, but due to the greater required resource commitments relative to innovation, it ventures need to be approved by top management (Burgelman, 1983). As such we will explore the following key research question in this paper: How do social capital and structural separation on organizational and TMT level differentially influence innovation, venturing, and renewal processes? Methodology/Key Propositions We investigated our hypotheses on a final sample of 240 companies in a variety of industries in the Netherlands. All our measures were validated in previous studies. We targeted a second respondent in each firm to reduce problems with single-rater data (James et al., 1984). We separated the measurement of the independent and the dependent variables in two surveys to create a one-year time lag and reduce potential common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Results and Implications Consistent with our hypotheses, our results show that configurations of structural separation and integrative mechanisms have different effects on the three aspects of corporate entrepreneurship. Innovation was affected by organizational level mechanisms, renewal by integrative mechanisms on top management team level and venturing by mechanisms on both levels. Surprisingly, our results indicated that integrative mechanisms on top management team level had negative effects on corporate entrepreneurship activities. We believe this paper makes two significant contributions. First, we provide more insight in what the effects of ambidextrous organizational forms (i.e. combinations of differentiation and integration mechanisms) are on venturing, innovation and renewal processes. Our findings show that more valuable insights can be gained by comparing the individual parts of corporate entrepreneurship instead of focusing on the whole. Second, we deliver insights in how management can create a facilitative organizational context for these corporate entrepreneurship activities.

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Engineering assets such as roads, rail, bridges and other forms of public works are vital to the effective functioning of societies {Herder, 2006 #128}. Proficient provision of this physical infrastructure is therefore one of the key activities of government {Lædre, 2006 #123}. In order to ensure engineering assets are procured and maintained on behalf of citizens, government needs to devise the appropriate policy and institutional architecture for this purpose. The changing institutional arrangements around the procurement of engineering assets are the focus of this paper. The paper describes and analyses the transition to new, more collaborative forms of procurement arrangements which are becoming increasingly prevalent in Australia and other OECD countries. Such fundamental shifts from competitive to more collaborative approaches to project governance can be viewed as a major transition in procurement system arrangements. In many ways such changes mirror the shift from New Public Management, with its emphasis on the use of market mechanisms to achieve efficiencies {Hood, 1991 #166}, towards more collaborative approaches to service delivery, such as those under network governance arrangements {Keast, 2007 #925}. However, just as traditional forms of procurement in a market context resulted in unexpected outcomes for industry, such as a fragmented industry afflicted by chronic litigation {Dubois, 2002 #9}, the change to more collaborative forms of procurement is unlikely to be a panacea to the problems of procurement, and may well also have unintended consequences. This paper argues that perspectives from complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory can contribute to the theory and practice of managing system transitions. In particular the concept of emergence provides a key theoretical construct to understand the aggregate effect that individual project governance arrangements can have upon the structure of specific industries, which in turn impact individual projects. Emergence is understood here as the macro structure that emerges out of the interaction of agents in the system {Holland, 1998 #100; Tang, 2006 #51}.

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Generally, major public funding is invested in civil infrastructure assets. The efficiency and comfort level of expected and actual living standards is largely dependant on the management strategies of these assets. Buildings are one of the major & vital assets, which need to be maintained primarily to ensure their functionality by effective & efficient delivery of services and to optimise economic benefits. In Australia, billions of dollars are spent annually managing and maintaining built assets. These assets make up the social and economic infrastructure, which facilitate the essential services to public and business. Buildings are one of the prime & fundamental assets, which need to be managed effectively and efficiently to ensure that related services are delivered economically and sustainably

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The potential of bequests to contribute to the sustainability of charities1 is immense, with social and economic trends opening up the bequest landscape. Yet so much is unknown about how Australians think about charitable bequests – particularly about the motivations, barriers and triggers surrounding this behaviour. Do bequestors differ from other donors? What prevents good intentions from becoming good actions? Where do charities figure in this process? This study aims at a better understanding of those Australians who make a charitable bequest and those who might. It offers individual charities, and the sector as a whole, empirical evidence to support and extend the anecdotal knowledge of those working with donors around this sensitive, but vital, area. This research has been supported by the Perpetual Foundation, the EF and SL Gluyas Trust and the Edward Corbould Charitable Trust under the management of Perpetual Trustee Company Ltd.

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Despite the increasing significance of the construction industry as an emerging sector of the Australian economy, there is inadequate research performed on construction design firms in terms of theoretical and empirical foundations. Although past research has identified the barriers and success factors for firm market entry, evidence suggests that to date no research has explicitly explored the sustainability of construction design firms in international markets. SMEs and their approach to firm internationalisation differ significantly from large manufacturing firms and a vast majority of construction design firms operate as SMEs. This paper develops a sustainable business model for construction design SMEs, which rely upon the development of clear Client Following (CF) versus Market Seeking (MS) strategies to support internal firm strategic and operational management. The understanding of these strategies is vital as the application of either will shape the design management approach of firms, which would in turn impact on the sustainability of these firms in foreign markets. Long-term sustainability of firms in international markets relies heavily upon client satisfaction. Client and project team participants’ communication during various design processes has often been problematic and the added difficulty of communicating across international boundaries further compounds the problem of capturing and maintaining client’s requirements. Therefore this paper develops a model for economic sustainability of Australian construction design firms working in international markets by exploring factors that affect client satisfaction across international boundaries, through the development of business performance indicators. These include not only the critical financial capital but also other ‘softer’ indicators, namely: social, cultural and intellectual capital. These act as a firm’s measure of success and the acquisition of this type of capital will provide significant advantages to firms’ success, hence sustainability in international markets.

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Maps have been published on the world wide web since its inception (Cartwright, 1999) and are still accessed and viewed by millions of users today (Peterson, 2003). While early webbased GIS products lacked a complete set of cartographic capabilities, the functionality within such systems has significantly increased over recent years. Functionalities once found only in desktop GIS products are now available in web-based GIS applications, for example, data entry, basic editing, and analysis. Applications based on web-GIS are becoming more widespread and the web-based GIS environment is replacing the traditional desktop GIS platforms in many organizations. Therefore, development of a new cartographic method for web-based GIS is vital. The broad aim of this project is to examine and discuss the challenges and opportunities of innovative cartography methods for web-based GIS platforms. The work introduces a recently developed cartographic methodology, which is based on a web-based GIS portal by the Survey of Israel (SOI). The work discusses the prospects and constraints of such methods in improving web-GIS interfaces and usability for the end user. The work also tables the preliminary findings of the initial implementation of the web-based GIS cartographic method within the portal of the Survey of Israel, as well as the applicability of those methods elsewhere.

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This chapter describes the use of collaborative learning as an approach to enhance English language learning by students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) principles were applied to two case studies, one comprising of undergraduate English as Foreign Language Learners in Turkey and the other involved English as Second Language learners in Australia. Social constructivism inspired communicative language teaching using collaborative learning activities such as team work, interactive peer-based learning, and iterative stages of learning matrix were incorporated to enhance students' learning outcomes. Data collected after the CLT intervention was made up of field notes, reflective logs and focus group interviews which revealed complementarities, as well as subtle differences between the two cases. The findings were summarized as learning dispositions; speaking fluency and confidence; learning diagnostics and completion deficiencies; task engagement, flow theory and higher order thinking skills; in addition to self efficacy and development of student identity. CLT has the potential to provide a more inclusive and dynamic education for diverse learners through vital outcomes and benefits which resonate with the real world.

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This is an important book that ought to launch a debate about how we research our understanding of the world, it is an innovative intervention in a vital public issue, and it is an elegant and scholarly hard look at what is actually happening. Jean Seaton, Prof of Media History, U of Westminster, UK & Official Historian of the BBC -- Summary: This book investigates the question of how comparative studies of international TV news (here: on violence presentation) can best be conceptualized in a way that allows for crossnational, comparative conclusions on an empirically validated basis. This book shows that such a conceptualization is necessary in order to overcome existing restrictions in the comparability of international analysis on violence presentation. Investigated examples include the most watched news bulletins in Great Britain (10o'clock news on the BBC), Germany (Tagesschau on ARD) and Russia (Vremja on Channel 1). This book highlights a substantial cross-national violence news flow as well as a cross-national visual violence flow (key visuals) as distinct transnational components. In addition, event-related textual analysis reveals how the historical rootedness of nations and its symbols of power are still manifested in televisual mediations of violence. In conclusion, this study lobbies for a conscientious use of comparative data/analysis both in journalism research and practice in order to understand what it may convey in the different arenas of today’s newsmaking.

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The relationship between student well-being and the other vital outcomes of school is unequivocal. Improved outcomes in all aspects of student well-being are positively associated with improved outcomes in all other aspects of schooling. This educational imperative only serves to strengthen and support the moral imperative for schools and schooling to be inclusive, supportive and nurturing in order to maintain and support student well-being. (Fraillon 2005, p. 12)

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As Brisbane grows, it is rapidly becoming akin to any other city in the world with its typical stark grey concrete buildings rather than being characterized by its subtropical element of abundant green vegetation. Living Walls can play a vital role in restoring the loss of this distinct local element of a subtropical city. This paper will start by giving an overview of the traditional methods of greening subtropical cities with the use of urban parks and street trees. Then, by examining a recent heat imaging map of Brisbane, the effect of green cover with the built environment will be shown. With this information from a macro level, this paper will proceed to examine a typical urban block within the Central Business District (CBD) to demonstrate urban densification in relation to greenery in the city. Then, this paper will introduce the new technology where Living Walls have the untapped potential of effectively greening a city where land is scarce and given over to high density development. Living Walls incorporated into building design does not only enhance the subtropical lifestyle that is being lost in modern cities but is also an effective means for addressing climate change. This paper will serve as a preliminary investigation into the effects of incorporating Living Walls into cities. By growing a Living Wall onto buildings, we can be part of an effective design solution for countering global warming and at the same time, Living Walls can return local character to subtropical cities, thereby greening the city as well.