Facets of the polytope of the asymmetric travelling salesman problem with replenishment arcs

The Asymmetric Travelling Salesman Problem with Replenishment Arcs (RATSP) is a new class of problems arising from work related to aircraft routing. Given a digraph with cost on the arcs, a solution of the RATSP, like that of the Asymmetric Travelling Salesman Problem, induces a directed tour in the graph which minimises total cost. However the tour must satisfy additional constraints: the arc set is partitioned into replenishment arcs and ordinary arcs, each node has a non-negative weight associated with it, and the tour cannot accumulate more than some weight limit before a replenishment arc must be used. To enforce this requirement, constraints are needed. We refer to these as replenishment constraints.

In this paper, we review previous polyhedral results for the RATSP and related problems, then prove that two classes of constraints developed in V. Mak and N. Boland [Polyhedral results and exact algorithms for the asymmetric travelling salesman problem with replenishment arcs, Technical Report TR M05/03, School of Information Technology, Deakin University, 2005] are, under appropriate conditions, facet-defining for the RATS polytope.

Predicting prosocial personality from attachment facets: are some facets more critical than others?

Research across various countries and relationship contexts suggests that attachment anxiety and avoidance are associated with people’s prosocial feelings, tendencies, and behaviors (e.g., Gillath et al., 2005; Karantzas, Evans, & Foddy, 2007). In the present paper we extend the two dimensional model of attachment to include a series of nested facets. Doing so allowed us to examine whether the multifaceted nested factor model provides a better explanation of the associations between attachment and the components of prosocial personality as compared to the bi-factor model (attachment anxiety and avoidance). Three hundred and eighty participants, aged 18 to 33 years completed self-report measures of adult attachment and prosocial personality. Data were fitted to various models – as expected the nested model provided a better fit to the data and explained a significantly larger proportion of the variance in prosocial tendencies than the bi-factor model. The attachment facets were found to make distinct contributions to prosocial personality beyond the broad attachment dimensions (e.g., the preoccupied facet was uniquely associated with personal distress). Implications for the revised attachment structure across various prosocial contexts are discussed, as are the limitations of using the Experience in Close Relationships Scale (ECR; Brennan et al., 1998) to test a multifaceted attachment model.

Eventscapes : visualizing events over time with emotive facets

The scale and dynamicity of social media, and interaction between traditional news sources and online communities, has created challenges to information retrieval approaches. Users may have no clear information need or be unable to express it in the appropriate idiom, requiring instead to be oriented in an unfamiliar domain, to explore and learn. We present a novel data-driven visualization, termed Eventscape, that combines time, visual media, mood, and controversy. Formative evaluation highlights the value of emotive facets for rapid evaluation of mixed news and social media topics, and a role for such visualizations as pre-cursors to deeper search. Copyright 2011 ACM.

Predicting psychological and subjective well-being from personality: incremental prediction from 30 facets over the Big 5

This study investigated the relationship between the Big 5, measured at factor and facet levels, and dimensions of both psychological and subjective well-being. Three hundred and thirty-seven participants completed the 30 Facet International Personality Item Pool Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule, and Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being. Cross-correlation decomposition presented a parsimonious picture of how well-being is related to personality factors. Incremental facet prediction was examined using double-adjusted r2 confidence intervals and semi-partial correlations. Incremental prediction by facets over factors ranged from almost nothing to a third more variance explained, suggesting a more modest incremental prediction than presented in the literature previously. Examination of semi-partial correlations controlling for factors revealed a small number of important facet-well-being correlations. All data and R analysis scripts are made available in an online repository.

Incremental criterion prediction of personality facets over factors: obtaining unbiased estimates and confidence intervals

 Many researchers have argued that higher order models of personality such as the Five Factor Model are insufficient, and that facet-level analysis is required to better understand criteria such as well-being, job performance, and personality disorders. However, common methods in the extant literature used to estimate the incremental prediction of facets over factors have several shortcomings. This paper delineates these shortcomings by evaluating alternative methods using statistical theory, simulation, and an empirical example. We recommend using differences between Olkin-Pratt adjusted r-squared for factor versus facet regression models to estimate the incremental prediction of facets and present a method for obtaining confidence intervals for such estimates using double adjusted-. r-squared bootstrapping. We also provide an R package that implements the proposed methods.

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) based visualisation of socio-technical facets of RFID technology translation: an Australian hospital scenario

In the early 2000s, Information Systems researchers in Australia had begun to emphasise socio-technical approaches in innovation adoption of technologies. The ‘essentialist' approaches to adoption (for example, Innovation Diffusion or TAM), suggest an essence is largely responsible for rate of adoption (Tatnall, 2011) or a new technology introduced may spark innovation. The socio-technical factors in implementing an innovation are largely flouted by researchers and hospitals. Innovation Translation is an approach that purports that any innovation needs to be customised and translated in to context before it can be adopted. Equally, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is an approach that embraces the differences in technical and human factors and socio-professional aspects in a non-deterministic manner. The research reported in this paper is an attempt to combined the two approaches in an effective manner, to visualise the socio-technical factors in RFID technology adoption in an Australian hospital. This research investigation demonstrates RFID technology translation in an Australian hospital using a case approach (Yin, 2009). Data was collected using a process of focus groups and interviews, analysed with document analysis and concept mapping techniques. The data was then reconstructed in a ‘movie script' format, with Acts and Scenes funnelled to ANT informed abstraction at the end of each Act. The information visualisation at the end of each Act using ANT informed Lens reveal the re-negotiation and improvement of network relationships between the people (factors) involved including nurses, patient care orderlies, management staff and non-human participants such as equipment and technology. The paper augments the current gaps in literature regarding socio-technical approaches in technology adoption within Australian healthcare context, which is transitioning from non-integrated nearly technophobic hospitals in the last decade to a tech-savvy integrated era. More importantly, the ANT visualisation addresses one of the criticisms of ANT i.e. its insufficiency to explain relationship formations between participants and over changes of events in relationship networks (Greenhalgh & Stones, 2010).

Vulnerable dark triad personality facets are associated with religious fundamentalist tendencies

BACKGROUND: This study explores the possibility that religious fundamentalism (RF) may be linked to deficits in personality structure, which is in contrast to the general assumption that religiosity and spirituality are positively related to mature personality development. SAMPLING AND METHODS: To test this hypothesis, 327 (232 female) college students completed the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being together with the Innsbrucker Religious Fundamentalism Scale. In addition, the 'vulnerable dark triad' of personality ('vulnerable narcissism', subscale of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory; 'secondary psychopathy', subscale of Levenson's Self-Report Psychopathy Scale; 'borderline personality', of the Borderline Personality Inventory) was assessed. RESULTS: In general, the relation between spirituality and healthy personality functioning was confirmed. In addition to greatly overlapping with 'general religiosity' (p < 0.001), RF was also relevantly predicted by narcissistic ('hiding the self') and borderline ('primitive defenses') personality facets (p < 0.05 for both). CONCLUSIONS: Based on these preliminary data, we conclude that specific structural deficits in personality might lead to more rigorous variants of religious/spiritual beliefs such as RF. Further research in clinical surroundings as well as in religious extremist groups is recommended.

Metaphors are good mirrors: reflecting on change for teacher educators

In this paper we discuss the use of metaphor as an educative tool for reflection. In the instance of this paper we use metaphor to reflect on the personal images of change that were used by some women teacher educators to make sense of their professional lives and practices over the last decade. This last decade in teacher education has seen significant institutional and cultural change. The paper discusses the strengths and limitations of the use of metaphor. The different interpretations of these metaphors illustrates how these women have used metaphor for explaining facets of change in their professional lives. The challenge of professional renewal is apparent in the metaphors in the ways that complexity, change, journeys, and movement are indicated. Reflection on change in professional practice needs to be continuous. Use of metaphor in the way described in this paper encourages that ongoing process.

The relationship between time of founding and the composition of the workforce in Australian workplaces

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the relationship between organisational age and two specific aspects of labour flexibility-numerical
flexibility and workforce skill composition (as one facet of functional flexibility)that extends earlier work in two ways. First, it uses data from a large-scale national survey (the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey [AWIRS)1995). Second. it focuses on two widely studied facets of labour flexibility, numerical flexibility and functional flexibility. Previous research has investigated the relationship between organisational age and aspects of organisation such as strategy and structure (Baum and Oliver, 1991; Henderson, 1999; Reed and Blunsdon, 1998). Henderson (1999) found that age effects were contingent on different organisational strategies and process. Reed and Blunsdon (1998) found that organisational maturity is associated with goal directed, or strategic flexibility characterised by low levels of formal rules and regulations but clarity a/purpose. But a more complex relationship was also identified - for example; very young organisations (founded in the 1990,) appear to have higher levels of formalisation at founding than organisations established in earlier periods. This paper investigates these questions further. The results show that the relationship between age; numerical flexibility and workforce skill composition is non-linear, but the data do not make it possible to separate age effects associated with aging, time of founding and changing environmental conditions.

The use of correspondence analysis to develop a scale to measure workplace morale from multi-level data

This paper focuses on the issue of comparing social groups or collectivities using measures derived from individual-level multivariate data. In this case, groups need to be differentiated such that: (a) between-group differences are maximized; (b) within-group differences are minimised; and (c) `differences' are calibrated to a scale that reflects a set indicators or observed variables.This paper demonstrates empirically how correspondence analysis can achieve this. It presents a scale of `workplace morale' derived from the responses of employees in a large sample of workplaces to questions concerning satisfaction with various facets of their job and their workplace. The scale derived through correspondence analysis is shown to achieve the three criteria described above.

Intercultural service encounters : an exploratory study of customer experiences

Intercultural contact occurs on a daily basis across all facets of life, and is reflective of Australia’s multicultural society. This trend is observed in many Western industrialised nations and has contributed to a growing body of research and literature in the field of managing cultural diversity. While much of this research is focused on the internal context of the workplace, relatively little attention has been given to the impact of culture on the service provider and customer interface. In an effort to shed some light on the service experiences of culturally diverse customers, a series of exploratory interviews were conducted. The findings suggest that on the basis of service provider behaviors (both verbal and nonverbal), culturally diverse customers perceive they are the recipients of inequitable service and consequently experience low levels of satisfaction.

The transition from schoolboy to elite sportsman: education and training and early career players in the AFL

IIn this paper we discuss some of the findings of a research project funded by the Australian Football League (AFL) titled: Getting the Balance Right: Professionalism, Performance, Prudentialism and Playstations in the Life of AFL Footballers. The research explored the following issues: the emergence and evolution of a 'professional identity' for AFL footballers an identity that has many facets including the emerging ideas that a professional leads a balanced life, and has a prudent orientation to the future, to life after football. This 'professional identity' isn't natural, and must be developed through a range of 'professional development' activities (a common link to all other 'professions'). In the AFL at this time professional development has a focus on engaging players in a variety of education and training activities TAFE & University courses, and workshops and seminars that the industry has put in place to educate players about issues that the industry sees as important.

The paper focuses on our research with players we classified as Early Career. For many of these 17 to 21 year old young men the later years of secondary schooling were compromised in their pursuit of an AFL career. Their subsequent drafting is followed by intense efforts to physically prepare for football. In this context our research indicates that many Early Career players put football first, second and third. Education and training, and professional development come further down their list of priorities.

A historical review of the nurse practitioner role in Australia

Internationally, the nurse practitioner role has been shown to be cost-effective, safe, and instrumental in improving patient outcomes. The nurse practitioner role in Australia is in its infancy. Major stakeholders such as the nurses' boards and state departments of health throughout Australia were contacted to identify major policies and discussion papers. Database searches were conducted in CINAHL and EBSCOhost. Disparity between states exists in all facets of the nurse practitioner role, especially in definition of the role, scope of practice, educational qualifications, and specialized functions. Access to Medicare funding is unobtainable, resulting in inequity of access to health services for disadvantaged communities. The State Nurse Practitioner Taskforce Reports highlight the disparity between the role of nurse practitioner in each State of Australia and has led to fragmentation of the role at a national level. There is a need for consistency, which could be achieved if it were coordinated by a national nursing body with a voice in national health policy development and implementation