Inter-agency working : good intentions and interaction dynamics

This paper explores inter-agency working and examines the implications of inter-agency operations for delivering multi-domain service outcomes. Cross-agency collaborative approaches to service delivery are suggested to provide the vehicle for achieving integrated service and policy goals. However, it is argued these need to be crafted ‘fit’ for purpose’ and may not be the requisite approach for all joint purposes. Moreover, some commentators suggest that the optimism about these partnership arrangements and cross-agency actions to resolve complex multi-dimensional problems may be misplaced and propose that further research into the actual rather than desired consequences of these arrangements may find that, at times, partnership working creates negative effects. While collaboration and partnerships are often framed as the way to achieve real breakthroughs in service delivery across agencies, there remain key challenges to interagency working. As more and insistent calls for agencies and other community actors to work together in resolving complex social problems are heeded, the implications of working across organizational boundaries need to be further investigated. This paper investigates cases of inter-agency programmes to understand the dimensions and limitations of inter-agency working. The paper concludes by offering a framework for better inter-agency working that has applicability across all sectors.

The critical competences needed for innovative organizational inter-firm and intra-firm integration

In today's highly challenging business environment, an innovative and systemic approach is imperative to survival and growth. Organisational integration and technological integration, are often seen as a catalyst of change that could lead to significant improvements in organisations. The levels of improvement in inter and intra firm integration should arise from a detailed understanding and development of competences within and between organisations. Preliminary findings suggest that lack of trust across organisational cultures within the firms has a negative influence on the development of the capabilities to integrate and align technological innovations and hinders implementation and the effectiveness of the operations. Additionally, poor communication and conflict effects customer satisfaction. Firms need to transfer the competences that support cooperative integration, developed through interaction with supply chain partners, to their relationship arrangements with other supply chain partners, as these are key to ensuring low operational costs.

QoS-Based Web Service Scheduling Accommodating Inter-Service Dependencies Using Minimal-Conflict Hill-Climbing Repair Genetic Algorithm

In the filed of semantic grid, QoS-based Web service scheduling for workflow optimization is an important problem.However, in semantic and service rich environment like semantic grid, the emergence of context constraints on Web services is very common making the scheduling consider not only quality properties of Web services, but also inter service dependencies which are formed due to the context constraints imposed on Web services. In this paper, we present a repair genetic algorithm, namely minimal-conflict hill-climbing repair genetic algorithm, to address scheduling optimization problems in workflow applications in the presence of domain constraints and inter service dependencies. Experimental results demonstrate the scalability and effectiveness of the genetic algorithm.

A Penalty-based Genetic Algorithm for QoS-AwareWeb Service Composition with Inter-Service Dependencies and Conflicts

In Web service based systems, new value-added Web services can be constructed by integrating existing Web services. A Web service may have many implementations, which are functionally identical, but have different Quality of Service (QoS) attributes, such as response time, price, reputation, reliability, availability and so on. Thus, a significant research problem in Web service composition is how to select an implementation for each of the component Web services so that the overall QoS of the composite Web service is optimal. This is so called QoS-aware Web service composition problem. In some composite Web services there are some dependencies and conflicts between the Web service implementations. However, existing approaches cannot handle the constraints. This paper tackles the QoS-aware Web service composition problem with inter service dependencies and conflicts using a penalty-based genetic algorithm (GA). Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and the scalability of the penalty-based GA.

A grounded theory study of nursing students’ experiences in the off-campus clinical setting

Poor workplace relations are an issue of concern in many workplaces and this phenomenon is not restricted to the nursing profession. The issue of workplace violence in nursing is well documented and there are an increasing number of studies which have investigated the notion of horizontal violence amongst graduate nurses. The impact that poor workplace relations has on the development of a professional identity by nursing students in the off-campus clinical setting is significant in light of the current global shortage of nurses. There is a dearth of knowledge in understanding how Australian undergraduate nursing students experience the off-campus clinical setting and subsequently develop a professional identity as a nurse. Therefore the aim of this study was to discover and describe the phenomena in order to develop a substantive theory that explains the experiences of the undergraduate nursing students in a regional setting. Constructivist grounded theory methods were utilised in the conduct of the study. A sample of 29 participants was recruited permitting the formulation of a substantive theory regarding the development of a professional identity in nursing students. This substantive theory contributes knowledge relevant to the undergraduate nursing students, nurse educators, nursing workforce planners, and the tertiary educational institutions offering nursing. This is achieved through discovering, describing and explaining the phenomenon of ‘anxiety’ which the nursing students experience as a result of the interrelationship and interactions of tradition bearing, staff and student performance. These interactions intersect to form expectations of where the student fits within the hierarchy of the facility and the nursing profession in general. An understanding of the issues associated with tradition bearing, staff performance, and student performance and the impact that the interaction of these conditions has upon the student’s developing professional identity as a nurse is necessary to allow for the implementation of corrective strategies.

Granule-based knowledge representation for intra and inter transaction association mining

Abstract With the phenomenal growth of electronic data and information, there are many demands for the development of efficient and effective systems (tools) to perform the issue of data mining tasks on multidimensional databases. Association rules describe associations between items in the same transactions (intra) or in different transactions (inter). Association mining attempts to find interesting or useful association rules in databases: this is the crucial issue for the application of data mining in the real world. Association mining can be used in many application areas, such as the discovery of associations between customers’ locations and shopping behaviours in market basket analysis. Association mining includes two phases. The first phase, called pattern mining, is the discovery of frequent patterns. The second phase, called rule generation, is the discovery of interesting and useful association rules in the discovered patterns. The first phase, however, often takes a long time to find all frequent patterns; these also include much noise. The second phase is also a time consuming activity that can generate many redundant rules. To improve the quality of association mining in databases, this thesis provides an alternative technique, granule-based association mining, for knowledge discovery in databases, where a granule refers to a predicate that describes common features of a group of transactions. The new technique first transfers transaction databases into basic decision tables, then uses multi-tier structures to integrate pattern mining and rule generation in one phase for both intra and inter transaction association rule mining. To evaluate the proposed new technique, this research defines the concept of meaningless rules by considering the co-relations between data-dimensions for intratransaction-association rule mining. It also uses precision to evaluate the effectiveness of intertransaction association rules. The experimental results show that the proposed technique is promising.

QoS-based web service composition accommodating inter-service dependencies using minimal-conflict , hill-climbing repair genetic algorithm

In the field of semantic grid, QoS-based Web service composition is an important problem. In semantic and service rich environment like semantic grid, the emergence of context constraints on Web services is very common making the composition consider not only QoS properties of Web services, but also inter service dependencies and conflicts which are formed due to the context constraints imposed on Web services. In this paper, we present a repair genetic algorithm, namely minimal-conflict hill-climbing repair genetic algorithm, to address the Web service composition optimization problem in the presence of domain constraints and inter service dependencies and conflicts. Experimental results demonstrate the scalability and effectiveness of the genetic algorithm.

Inter- and intra- project knowledge transfer : analysis of knowledge transfer techniques

Many studies in the area of project management and social networks have identified the significance of project knowledge transfer within and between projects. However, only few studies have examined the intra- and inter-projects knowledge transfer activities. Knowledge in projects can be transferred via face-to-face interactions on the one hand, and via IT-based tools on the other. Although companies have allocated many resources to the IT tools, it has been found that they are not always effectively utilised, and people prefer to look for knowledge using social face-to-face interactions. This paper explores how to effectively leverage two alternative knowledge transfer techniques, face-to-face and IT-based tools to facilitate knowledge transfer and enhance knowledge creation for intra- and inter-project knowledge transfer. The paper extends the previous research on the relationships between and within teams by examining the project’s external and internal knowledge networks concurrently. Social network qualitative analysis, using a case study within a small-medium enterprise, was used to examine the knowledge transfer activities within and between projects, and to investigate knowledge transfer techniques. This paper demonstrates the significance of overlapping employees working simultaneously on two or more projects and their impact on facilitating knowledge transfer between projects within a small/medium organisation. This research is also crucial to gaining better understanding of different knowledge transfer techniques used for intra- and inter-project knowledge exchange. The research provides recommendations on how to achieve better knowledge transfer within and between projects in order to fully utilise a project’s knowledge and achieve better project performance.

The role of trust in inter-project knowledge transfer

Knowledge is a powerful organisational asset yet intangible and hard to manage, particularly in a project environment where there is a tendency to repeat the same mistakes rather than learn from previous project lessons. A lack of effective knowledge sharing across projects causes reinventions that are costly, and time consuming. Research on knowledge transfer has focused mainly on functional organisations and only recent attention has been directed towards knowledge transfer in projects. Furthermore, there is little evidence in the literature which examines trust in the knowledge transfer processes. This paper studies how the three types of trust - ability, benevolence, and integrity impact on knowledge transfer from the inter-project perspective. Three case studies investigated the matter. A detailed description of the work undertaken and an analysis of interviews with project professionals from large project-based organisations are presented in this paper. The key finding identifies the positive impact of ability trust on knowledge transfer. However, it was also found that perception on both integrity and benevolence varied across organisations suggesting that there can be a possible impact of organisational factors on the way trust is perceived in inter-project knowledge transfer. The paper concludes with a discussion and recommendations regarding the development of trust for inter-project environment.

The development of an on-line module for students on “Working in Inter-cultural Teams”

Since 2005 QUT through a number of large Teaching and Learning Grants has sponsored a range of teamwork learning initiatives to assist students to develop the teamwork skills demanded by industry. After a suite of six online team learning modules was developed, first year unit coordinators requested an additional module to address the challenges of working with the diverse range of social, cultural and personal values that students from different backgrounds bring to student teams. The Intercultural Teams module asks students to map themselves against a Cultural Orientations Framework so they can understand their own cultural beliefs. By learning about other cultural orientations and comparing and analysing their effects, team members can develop communication and team process management strategies to leverage their differences to realise effective and creative outcomes. The interactive session will demonstrate the elements of the Intercultural Teams module and ask participants to consider ways the module can be integrated into classroom learning to support the development of students’ intercultural competencies.

Inter-and Intra-Site Genetic Diversity of Natural Field Populations of Rice Tungro Bacilliform Virus in the Philippines

The genetic structure of rice tungro bacilliform virus (RTBV) populations within and between growing sites was analyzed in a collection of natural field isolates from different rice varieties grown in eight tungro-endemic sites of the Philippines. Total DNA extracts from 345 isolates were digested with EcoRV restriction enzyme and hybridized with a full-length probe of RTBV, a procedure shown in preliminary experiments capable of revealing high levels of polymorphism in RTBV field isolates. In the total population, 17 distinct EcoRV-based genome profiles (genotypes) were identified and used as indicators for virus diversity. Distinct sets of genotypes occurred in Isabela and North Cotabato provinces suggesting a geographic isolation of virus populations. However, among the sites in each province, there were few significant differences in the genotype compositions of virus populations. The number of genotypes detected at a site varied from two to nine with a few genotypes dominating. In general the isolates at a site persisted from season to season indicating a genetic stability for the local virus population. Over the sampling time, IRRI rice varieties, which have green leafhopper resistance genes, supported similar virus populations to those supported by other varieties, indicating that the variety of the host exerted no apparent selection pressures. Insect transmission experiments on selected RTBV field isolates showed that dramatic shifts in genotype and phenotype distributions can occur in response to host /environmental shifts.