Management information:design of a system for change identification

This thesis deals with the problem of Information Systems design for Corporate Management. It shows that the results of applying current approaches to Management Information Systems and Corporate Modelling fully justify a fresh look to the problem. The thesis develops an approach to design based on Cybernetic principles and theories. It looks at Management as an informational process and discusses the relevance of regulation theory to its practice. The work proceeds around the concept of change and its effects on the organization's stability and survival. The idea of looking at organizations as viable systems is discussed and a design to enhance survival capacity is developed. It takes Ashby's theory of adaptation and developments on ultra-stability as a theoretical framework and considering conditions for learning and foresight deduces that a design should include three basic components: A dynamic model of the organization- environment relationships; a method to spot significant changes in the value of the essential variables and in a certain set of parameters; and a Controller able to conceive and change the other two elements and to make choices among alternative policies. Further considerations of the conditions for rapid adaptation in organisms composed of many parts, and the law of Requisite Variety determine that successful adaptive behaviour requires certain functional organization. Beer's model of viable organizations is put in relation to Ashby's theory of adaptation and regulation. The use of the Ultra-stable system as abstract unit of analysis permits developing a rigorous taxonomy of change; it starts distinguishing between change with in behaviour and change of behaviour to complete the classification with organizational change. It relates these changes to the logical categories of learning connecting the topic of Information System design with that of organizational learning.

The impact of Islamic banking on the cost efficiency and productivity change of Malaysian commercial banks

This study employs stochastic frontier analysis to analyze Malaysian commercial banks during 1996-2002, and particularly focuses on determining the impact of Islamic banking on performance. We derive both net and gross efficiency estimates, thereby demonstrating that differences in operating characteristics explain much of the difference in costs between Malaysian banks. We also decompose productivity change into efficiency, technical, and scale change using a generalised Malmquist productivity index. On average, Malaysian banks experience moderate scale economies and annual productivity change of 2.68 percent, with the latter driven primarily by technical change, which has declined over time. Our gross efficiency estimates suggest that Islamic banking is associated with higher input requirements. However, our productivity estimates indicate that full-fledged Islamic banks have overcome some of these cost disadvantages with rapid technical change, although this is not the case for conventional banks operating Islamic windows. Merged banks are found to have higher input usage and lower productivity change, suggesting that bank mergers have not contributed positively to bank performance. Finally, our results suggest that while the East Asian financial crisis had a short-term cost-reducing effect in 1998, the crisis triggered a more lasting negative impact by increasing the volume of non-performing loans.

Thin film bearings with phase change of lubricant

The possible evaporation of lubricant in fluid film bearings has been investigated theoretically and by experiment using a radial flow hydrostatic bearing supplied with liquid refrigerant R114. Good correlation between measured and theoretical values was obtained using a bespoke computational fluid dynamic model in which the flow was assumed to be laminar and adiabatic. The effects of viscous dissipation and vapour generation within the fluid film are fully accounted for by applying a fourth order Runge-Kutta routine to satisfy the radial and filmwise transverse constraints of momentum, energy and mass conservation. The results indicate that the radial velocity profile remains parabolic while the flow remains in the liquid phase and that the radial rate of enthalpy generation is then constant across the film at a given radius. The results also show that evaporation will commence at a radial location determined by geometry and flow conditions and in fluid layers adjacent to the solid boundaries. Evaporation is shown to progress in the radial direction and the load carrying capacity of such a bearing is reduced significantly. Expressions for the viscosity of the liquid/vapour mixture found in the literature survey have not been tested against experimental data. A new formulation is proposed in which the suitable choice of a characteristic constant yields close representation to any of these expressions. Operating constraints imposed by the design of the experimental apparatus limited the extent of the surface over which evaporation could be obtained, and prevented clear identification of the most suitable relationship for the viscosity of the liquid/vapour mixture. The theoretical model was extended to examine the development of two phase flow in a rotating shaft face seal of uniform thickness. Previous theoretical analyses have been based on the assumption that the radial velocity profile of the flow is always parabolic, and that the tangential component of velocity varies linearly from the value at the rotating surface, to zero at the stationary surface. The computational fluid dynamic analysis shows that viscous shear and dissipation in the fluid adjacent to the rotating surface leads to developing evaporation with a consequent reduction in tangential shear forces. The tangential velocity profile is predicted to decay rapidly through the film, exhibiting a profile entirely different to that assumed by previous investigators. Progressive evaporation takes place close to the moving wall and does not occur completely at a single radial location, as has been claimed in earlier work.

The impact of Islamic banking on the cost efficiency and productivity change of Malaysian commercial banks

This study employs Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) to analyse Malaysian commercial banks during 1996–2002, and particularly focuses on determining the impact of Islamic banking on performance. We derive both net and gross efficiency estimates, thereby demonstrating that differences in operating characteristics explain much of the difference in costs between Malaysian banks. We also decompose productivity change into efficiency, technical, and scale change using a generalized Malmquist productivity index. On average, Malaysian banks experience moderate scale economies and annual productivity change of 2.68%, with the latter driven primarily by Technical Change (TC), which has declined over time. Our gross efficiency estimates suggest that Islamic banking is associated with higher input requirements. However, our productivity estimates indicate that full-fledged Islamic banks have overcome some of these cost disadvantages with rapid TC, although this is not the case for conventional banks operating Islamic windows. Merged banks are found to have higher input usage and lower productivity change, suggesting that bank mergers have not contributed positively to bank performance. Finally, our results suggest that while the East Asian financial crisis had a short-term costreducing effect in 1998, the crisis triggered a long-lasting negative impact by increasing the volume of nonperforming loans.

Marine Le Pen and the 'New' FN:a change of style or of substance?

The electoral challenge of the far right is an enduringly problematic feature of contemporary French politics. In the first rounds of the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, the Front National (FN) under new leader Marine Le Pen attracted a combined total of ten million votes, bringing its ultra-nationalist policies to the centre of national political debate. This article examines the FN's impact on these elections and its implications for French politics. Drawing on official FN programmes, detailed election results and a range of opinion polling data, it assesses the strength of support for Le Pen and her party and seeks to explain their electoral appeal. In particular, it subjects to analysis the claim that the new leader has ‘de-demonised’ the FN, transforming it from perennial outsider to normal participant in mainstream French politics; and it reflects on the strategic dilemma posed for the centre-right by this newly invigorated far-right challenge.

Pilot study reviewing the receptivity for change of the business improvement department and the core leadership programme

Consultancy report for the Deputy Chief Constable, Warwickshire Police

Method of detecting a significant change of scene

A significant change of scene in a gradually changing scene is detected with the aid of a least one camera means for capturing digital images of the scene. A current image of the scene is formed together with a present weighted reference image which is formed from a plurality of previous images of the scene. Cell data is established based on the current image and the present weighted reference image. The cell data is statistically analysed so as to be able to identify at least one difference corresponding to a significant change of scene. When identified, an indication of such significant change of scene is provided.

Improving the management of behaviour that challenges associated with dementia in care homes:protocol for pharmacy-health psychology intervention feasibility study

INTRODUCTION: The inappropriate use of antipsychotics in people with dementia for behaviour that challenges is associated with an estimated 1800 deaths annually. However, solely focusing on antipsychotics may transfer prescribing to other equally dangerous psychotropics. Little is known about the role of pharmacists in the management of psychotropics used to treat behaviours that challenge. This research aims to determine whether it is feasible to implement and measure the effectiveness of a combined pharmacy-health psychology intervention incorporating a medication review and staff training package to limit the prescription of psychotropics to manage behaviour that challenges in care home residents with dementia. METHODS/ANALYSIS: 6 care homes within the West Midlands will be recruited. People with dementia receiving medication for behaviour that challenges, or their personal consultee, will be approached regarding participation. Medication used to treat behaviour that challenges will be reviewed by the pharmacist, in collaboration with the general practitioner (GP), person with dementia and carer. The behavioural intervention consists of a training package for care home staff and GPs promoting person-centred care and treating behaviours that challenge as an expression of unmet need. The primary outcome measure is the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Nursing Home version (NPI-NH). Other outcomes include quality of life (EQ-5D and DEMQoL), cognition (sMMSE), health economic (CSRI) and prescribed medication including whether recommendations were implemented. Outcome data will be collected at 6 weeks, and 3 and 6 months. Pretraining and post-training interviews will explore stakeholders' expectations and experiences of the intervention. Data will be used to estimate the sample size for a definitive study. ETHICS/DISSEMINATION: The project has received a favourable opinion from the East Midlands REC (15/EM/3014). If potential participants lack capacity, a personal consultee will be consulted regarding participation in line with the Mental Capacity Act. Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at conferences.

Determining the change of Brillouin frequency shift by using the similarity matching method

We have proposed a similarity matching method (SMM) to obtain the change of Brillouin frequency shift (BFS), in which the change of BFS can be determined from the frequency difference between detecting spectrum and selected reference spectrum by comparing their similarity. We have also compared three similarity measures in the simulation, which has shown that the correlation coefficient is more accurate to determine the change of BFS. Compared with the other methods of determining the change of BFS, the SMM is more suitable for complex Brillouin spectrum profiles. More precise result and much faster processing speed have been verified in our simulation and experiments. The experimental results have shown that the measurement uncertainty of the BFS has been improved to 0.72 MHz by using the SMM, which is almost one-third of that by using the curve fitting method, and the speed of deriving the BFS change by the SMM is 120 times faster than that by the curve fitting method.

An intervention encouraging planned self-regulation and goal setting in drivers across the lifespan:testing an extended theory of planned behaviour

Previous work has demonstrated that planning behaviours may be more adaptive than avoidance strategies in driving self-regulation, but ways of encouraging planning have not been investigated. The efficacy of an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) plus implementation intention based intervention to promote planning self-regulation in drivers across the lifespan was tested. An age stratified group of participants (N=81, aged 18-83 years) was randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition. The intervention prompted specific goal setting with action planning and barrier identification. Goal setting was carried out using an agreed behavioural contract. Baseline and follow-up measures of TPB variables, self-reported, driving self-regulation behaviours (avoidance and planning) and mobility goal achievements were collected using postal questionnaires. Like many previous efforts to change planned behaviour by changing its predictors using models of planned behaviour such as the TPB, results showed that the intervention did not significantly change any of the model components. However, more than 90% of participants achieved their primary driving goal, and self-regulation planning as measured on a self-regulation inventory was marginally improved. The study demonstrates the role of pre-decisional, or motivational components as contrasted with post-decisional goal enactment, and offers promise for the role of self-regulation planning and implementation intentions in assisting drivers in achieving their mobility goals and promoting safer driving across the lifespan, even in the context of unchanging beliefs such as perceived risk or driver anxiety.

Productivity change in the water industry in England and Wales:application of the meta-Malmquist Index

This paper uses a meta-Malmquist index for measuring productivity change of the water industry in England and Wales and compares this to the traditional Malmquist index. The meta-Malmquist index computes productivity change with reference to a meta-frontier, it is computationally simpler and it is circular. The analysis covers all 22 UK water companies in existence in 2007, using data over the period 1993–2007. We focus on operating expenditure in line with assessments in this field, which treat operating and capital expenditure as lacking substitutability. We find important improvements in productivity between 1993 and 2005, most of which were due to frontier shifts rather than catch up to the frontier by companies. After 2005, the productivity shows a declining trend. We further use the meta-Malmquist index to compare the productivities of companies at the same and at different points in time. This shows some interesting results relating to the productivity of each company relative to that of other companies over time, and also how the performance of each company relative to itself over 1993–2007 has evolved. The paper is grounded in the broad theory of methods for measuring productivity change, and more specifically on the use of circular Malmquist indices for that purpose. In this context, the contribution of the paper is methodological and applied. From the methodology perspective, the paper demonstrates the use of circular meta-Malmquist indices in a comparative context not only across companies but also within company across time. This type of within-company assessment using Malmquist indices has not been applied extensively and to the authors’ knowledge not to the UK water industry. From the application perspective, the paper throws light on the performance of UK water companies and assesses the potential impact of regulation on their performance. In this context, it updates the relevant literature using more recent data.

Innovation in teams : a qualitative and quantitative study of team behaviours

This thesis explores the processes of team innovation. It utilises two studies, an organisationally based pilot and an experimental study, to examine and identify aspects of teams' behaviours that are important for successful innovative outcome. The pilot study, based in two automotive manufacturers, involved the collection of team members' experiences through semi-structured interviews, and identified a number of factors that affected teams' innovative performance. These included: the application of ideative & dissemination processes; the importance of good team relationships, especially those of a more informal nature, in facilitating information and ideative processes; the role of external linkages in enhancing quality and radicality of innovations; and the potential attenuation of innovative ideas by time deadlines. This study revealed a number key team behaviours that may be important in successful innovation outcomes. These included; goal setting, idea generation and development, external contact, task and personal information exchange, leadership, positive feedback and resource deployment. These behaviours formed the basis of a coding system used in the second part of the research. Building on the results from the field based research, an experimental study was undertaken to examine the behavioural differences between three groups of sixteen teams undertaking innovative an task to produce an anti-drugs poster. They were randomly assigned to one of three innovation category conditions suggested by King and Anderson (1990), emergent, imported and imposed. These conditions determined the teams level of access to additional information on previously successful campaigns and the degree of freedom they had with regarding to the design of the poster. In addition, a further experimental condition was imposed on half of the teams per category which involved a formal time deadline for task completion. The teams were video taped for the duration of their innovation and their behaviours analysed and coded in five main aspects including; ideation, external focus, goal setting, interpersonal, directive and resource related activities. A panel of experts, utilising five scales developed from West and Anderson's (1996) innovation outcome measures, assessed the teams' outputs. ANOVAs and repeated measure ANOVAs were deployed to identify whether there were significant differences between the different conditions. The results indicated that there were some behavioural differences between the categories and that over the duration of the task behavioural changes were identified. The results, however, revealed a complex picture and suggested limited support for three distinctive innovation categories. There were many differences in behaviours, but rarely between more than two of the categories. A main finding was the impact that different levels of constraint had in changing teams' focus of attention. For example, emergent teams were found to use both their own team and external resources, whilst those who could import information about other successful campaigns were likely to concentrate outside the team and pay limited attention to the internal resources available within the team. In contrast, those operating under task constraints with aspects of the task imposed onto them were more likely to attend to internal team resources and pay limited attention to the external world. As indicated by the earlier field study, time deadlines did significantly change teams' behaviour, reducing ideative and information exchange behaviours. The model shows an important behavioural progression related to innovate teams. This progression involved the teams' openness initially to external sources, and then to the intra-team environment. Premature closure on the final idea before their mid-point was found to have a detrimental impact on team's innovation. Ideative behaviour per se was not significant for innovation outcome, instead the development of intra-team support and trust emerged as crucial. Analysis of variance revealed some limited differentiation between the behaviours of teams operating under the aforementioned three innovation categories. There were also distinct detrimental differences in the behaviour of those operating under a time deadline. Overall, the study identified the complex interrelationships of team behaviours and outcomes, and between teams and their context.

An investigation of the dynamic characteristics of a bolted-rotor system

A Jeffcott rotor consists of a disc at the centre of an axle supported at its end by bearings. A bolted Jeffcott rotor is formed by two discs, each with a shaft on one side. The discs are held together by spring loaded bolts near the outer edge. When the rotor turns there is tendency for the discs to separate on one side. This effect is more marked if the rotor is unbalanced, especially at resonance speeds. The equations of motion of the system have been developed with four degrees of freedom to include the rotor and bearing movements in the respective axes. These equations which include non-linear terms caused by the rotor opening, are subjected to external force such from rotor imbalance. A simulation model based on these equations was created using SIMULINK. An experimental test rig was used to characterise the dynamic features. Rotor discs open at a lateral displacement of the rotor of 0.8 mm. This is the threshold value used to show the change of stiffness from high stiffness to low stiffness. The experimental results, which measure the vibration amplitude of the rotor, show the dynamic behaviour of the bolted rotor due to imbalance. Close agreement of the experimental and theoretical results from time histories, waterfall plots, pseudo-phase plots and rotor orbit plot, indicated the validity of the model and existence of the non-linear jump phenomenon.

Experiments and observations on the behaviour and brain of the aging female mouse with special reference to dementia of the Alzheimer type

The objective of this research was to investigate the effects of normal aging and the additional effects of chronic exposure to two experimental diets, one enriched in aluminium, the other enriched in lecithin, on aspects of the behaviour and brain histology of the female mouse. The aluminium diet was administered in an attempt to develop a rodent model of Dementia of the Alzheimer Type (DAT). With normal aging, almost all assessed aspects of behaviour were found to be impaired. As regards cognition, selective impairments of single-trial passive avoidance and Morris place learning were observed. While all aspects of open-field behaviour were impaired, the degree of impairment was directly related to the degree of motoric complexity. Deficits were also observed on non-visual sensorimotor coordination tasks and in olfactory discrimination. Histologically, neuron loss, gliosis, vacuolation and congophilic angiopathy were observed in several of the brain regions/fibre tracts believed to contribute to the control of some of the assessed behaviours. The aluminium treatment had very selective effects on both behaviour and brain histology, inducing several features observed in DAT. Behaviourally, the treatment induced impaired spatial reference memory; reduced ambulation; disturbed olfactory function and induced the premature development of the senile pattern of swimming. Histologically, significant neuron loss and gliosis were observed in the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, amygdala, medial septum, pyriform and pr-frontal cortex. In addition, the brain distribution of congophilic angiopathy was significantly increased by the treatment. The lecithin treatment had effects on both non-cognitive and cognitive aspects of behaviour. The effects of aging on open-field ambulation and rearing were partially ameliorated by the treatment. A similar effect was observed for single-trial passive avoidance performance. Age-dependent improvements in acquisition/retention were observed in 17-23 month mice and Morris place task performance was improved in 11 and 17 month mice. Histologically, a partial sparing of neurons in the cerebellum, hippocampus, entorhinal cortex and subiculum was observed.