957 resultados para Great Building Services
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This study examined the impact of team-based working, team structure, and job design on employee well-being (in term of job satisfaction and work stress) in staff working in healthcare organizations in Hong Kong. Cross-cultural differences in the impact of job design, team structure, and employee well-being outcomes between United Kingdom and Hong Kong were also investigated. A group of 197 staff from two Hong Kong hospitals were compared to a sample of 270 UK staff working in National Health Service organizations in the UK. Results showed that team structure and job design were significantly associated with greater employee satisfaction and lower stress for Hong Kong healthcare staff. Culture was also found to moderate the impact of team structure and job design on employee well-being. The findings suggest that although team structure and job design contribute to employee well-being, they have differential impacts across cultures. This provides insights to policy planning on building team-based organizations in the healthcare sector involving multinational collaboration.
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Improving the performance of private sector small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in a cost effective manner is a major concern for government. Governments have saved costs by moving information online rather than through more expensive face-to-face exchanges between advisers and clients. Building on previous work that distinguished between types of advice, this article evaluates whether these changes to delivery mechanisms affect the type of advice received. Using a multinomial logit model of 1334 cases of business advice to small firms collected in England, the study found that advice to improve capabilities was taken by smaller firms who were less likely to have limited liability or undertake business planning. SMEs sought word-of-mouth referrals before taking internal, capability-enhancing advice. This is also the case when that advice was part of a wider package of assistance involving both internal and external aspects. Only when firms took advice that used extant capabilities did they rely on the Internet. Therefore, when the Internet is privileged over face-to-face advice the changes made by each recipient of advice are likely to diminish causing less impact from advice within the economy. It implies that fewer firms will adopt the sorts of management practices that would improve their productivity. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
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Fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) has been long sought as the ultimate solution to satisfy the demand for broadband access in the foreseeable future, and offer distance-independent data rate within access network reach. However, currently deployed FTTP networks have in most cases only replaced the transmission medium, without improving the overall architecture, resulting in deployments that are only cost efficient in densely populated areas (effectively increasing the digital divide). In addition, the large potential increase in access capacity cannot be matched by a similar increase in core capacity at competitive cost, effectively moving the bottleneck from access to core. DISCUS is a European Integrated Project that, building on optical-centric solutions such as Long-Reach Passive Optical access and flat optical core, aims to deliver a cost-effective architecture for ubiquitous broadband services. One of the key features of the project is the end-to-end approach, which promises to deliver a complete network design and a conclusive analysis of its economic viability. © 2013 IEEE.
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This study is an exploratory analysis of an operational measure for resource development strategies, and an exploratory analysis of internal organizational contingencies influencing choices of these strategies in charitable nonprofit organizations. The study provides conceptual guidance for advancing understanding about resource development in the nonprofit sector. The statistical findings are, however, inconclusive without further rigorous examination. A three category typology based on organization technology is initially presented to define the strategies. Three dimensions of internal organizational contingencies explored represent organization identity, professional staff, and boards of directors. Based on relevant literature and key informant interviews, an original survey was administered by mail to a national sample of nonprofit organizations. The survey collected data on indicators of the proposed strategy types and selected contingencies. Factor analysis extracted two of the initial categories in the typology. The Building Resource Development Infrastructure Strategy encompasses information technology, personnel, legal structures, and policies facilitating fund development. The Building Resource Development Infrastructure Strategy encompasses the mission, service niche, and type of service delivery forming the basis for seeking financial support. Linear regressions with each strategy type as the dependent variable identified distinct and common contingencies which may partly explain choices of strategies. Discriminant analysis suggests the potential predictive accuracy of the contingencies. Follow-up case studies with survey respondents provide additional criteria for operationalizing future measures of resource development strategies, and support and expand the analysis on contingencies. The typology offers a beginning framework for defining alternative approaches to resource development, and for exploring organization capacity specific to each approach. Contingencies that may be integral components of organization capacity are funding, leadership frame, background and experience, staff and volunteer effort, board member support, and relationships in the external environment. Based on these findings, management questions are offered for nonprofit organization stakeholders to consider in planning for resource development. Lessons learned in designing and conducting this study are also provided to enhance future related research. ^
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Administrative reform is a challenging endeavor for both developed and developing countries alike. For developing countries, the challenge is greater because numerous reforms are implemented concurrently sometimes under conditions of resource scarcity and political instability. So far there is no consensus as to what makes some reforms succeed and others fail. The current study seeks to fill that gap by offering an empirical comparative analysis of the administrative reforms initiated in Uganda and Tanzania since the early 1990s. The purpose of the study is to explain the similarities and differences, and give reasons for the successes and failures of the reform programs in the two countries. It focuses on four major areas; the size of the civil service, pay reform, capacity building, and ethics and accountability. Data were collected via in-depth face to face interviews with 35 key government officials and the content analysis of various documents. The results indicate that the reforms generated initial substantial reduction in the size of the public services in both countries. In Uganda, the traditional civil service was reduced from 140,500 in 1990 to 41,730 in 2004; while in Tanzania Ministries, Departments, and Agencies were reduced by 25%. Pay reform has generated substantial increases in civil servants' salaries in both countries but in Uganda, the government has not been able to abide by the pay strategy while in Tanzania the strategy guides the increments. Civil Service capacity building efforts have focused on enhancing the skills of the personnel. Training needs assessments were undertaken in all ministries in Uganda and a training policy was formulated. In Tanzania, the training needs assessments are still under way and a training policy has not yet been developed. Ethics and accountability are great challenges in both countries, but in Tanzania, there is more political will and commitment to improve the integrity of the civil service. The findings reveal that although Uganda started the reform with much more rigor and initial success, Tanzania has surpassed it and has a more stable, consistent, and promising reform record. This is because Uganda's leadership lacks political legitimacy. The country has since the late 1990s experienced a civil war in the northern and western parts of the country while Tanzania has benefitted from relative peace and high level political legitimacy.
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Small states that lack capacity and act on their own may fall victim to international and domestic terrorism, transnational organized crime or criminal gangs. The critical issue is not whether small Caribbean states should cooperate in meeting security challenges, but it is rather in what manner, and by which mechanisms can they overcome obstacles in the way of cooperation. The remit of the Regional Security System (RSS) has expanded dramatically, but its capabilities have improved very slowly. The member governments of the RSS are reluctant to develop military capacity beyond current levels since they see economic and social development and disaster relief as priorities, requiring little investment in military hardware. The RSS depends on international donors such as the USA, Canada, Great Britain, and increasingly China to fund training programs, maintain equipment and acquire material. In the view of most analysts, an expanded regional arrangement based on an RSS nucleus is not likely in the foreseeable future. Regional political consensus remains elusive and the predominance of national interests over regional considerations continues to serve as an obstacle to any CARICOM wide regional defense mechanism. Countries in the Caribbean, including the members of the RSS, have to become more responsible for their own security from their own resources. While larger CARICOM economies can do this, it would be difficult for most OECS members of the RSS to do the same. The CARICOM region including the RSS member countries, have undertaken direct regional initiatives in security collaboration. Implementation of the recommendations of the Regional Task Force on Crime and Security (RTFCS) and the structure and mechanisms created for the staging of the Cricket World Cup (CWC 2007) resulted in unprecedented levels of cooperation and permanent legacy institutions for the regional security toolbox. The most important tier of security relationships for the region is the United States and particularly USSOUTHCOM. The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative [CBSI] in which the countries of the RSS participate is a useful U.S. sponsored tool to strengthen the capabilities of the Caribbean countries and promote regional ownership of security initiatives. Future developments under discussion by policy makers in the Caribbean security environment include the granting of law enforcement authority to the military, the formation of a single OECS Police Force, and the creation of a single judicial and law enforcement space. The RSS must continue to work with its CARICOM partners, as well as with the traditional “Atlantic Powers” particularly Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to implement a general framework for regional security collaboration. Regional security cooperation should embrace wider traditional and non-traditional elements of security appropriate to the 21st century. Security cooperation must utilize to the maximum the best available institutions, mechanisms, techniques and procedures already available in the region. The objective should not be the creation of new agencies but rather the generation of new resources to take effective operations to higher cumulative levels. Security and non-security tools should be combined for both strategic and operational purposes. Regional, hemispheric, and global implications of tactical and operational actions must be understood and appreciated by the forces of the RSS member states. The structure and mechanisms, created for the staging of Cricket World Cup 2007 should remain as legacy institutions and a toolbox for improving regional security cooperation in the Caribbean. RSS collaboration should build on the process of operational level synergies with traditional military partners. In this context, the United States must be a true partner with shared interests, and with the ability to work unobtrusively in a nationalistic environment. Withdrawal of U.S. support for the RSS is not an option.
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Background: Ecosystems worldwide are suffering the consequences of anthropogenic impact. The diverse ecosystem of coral reefs, for example, are globally threatened by increases in sea surface temperatures due to global warming. Studies to date have focused on determining genetic diversity, the sequence variability of genes in a species, as a proxy to estimate and predict the potential adaptive response of coral populations to environmental changes linked to climate changes. However, the examination of natural gene expression variation has received less attention. This variation has been implicated as an important factor in evolutionary processes, upon which natural selection can act. Results: We acclimatized coral nubbins from six colonies of the reef-building coral Acropora millepora to a common garden in Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef, GBR) for a period of four weeks to remove any site-specific environmental effects on the physiology of the coral nubbins. By using a cDNA microarray platform, we detected a high level of gene expression variation, with 17% (488) of the unigenes differentially expressed across coral nubbins of the six colonies (jsFDR-corrected, p < 0.01). Among the main categories of biological processes found differentially expressed were transport, translation, response to stimulus, oxidation-reduction processes, and apoptosis. We found that the transcriptional profiles did not correspond to the genotype of the colony characterized using either an intron of the carbonic anhydrase gene or microsatellite loci markers. Conclusion: Our results provide evidence of the high inter-colony variation in A. millepora at the transcriptomic level grown under a common garden and without a correspondence with genotypic identity. This finding brings to our attention the importance of taking into account natural variation between reef corals when assessing experimental gene expression differences. The high transcriptional variation detected in this study is interpreted and discussed within the context of adaptive potential and phenotypic plasticity of reef corals. Whether this variation will allow coral reefs to survive to current challenges remains unknown.
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Background: Too little information is available on Sri Lanka’s current capacity to provide community genetic services—antenatal genetic services in particular—to understand whether building that capacity could further improve and reduce disparity in maternal and child health. This qualitative research project seeks to gather information on congenital disorders, routine antenatal care, and the current state of antenatal screening testing services within that routine antenatal to assess the feasibility of and the need for scaling up antenatal genetics services in Sri Lanka. Methods: Nineteen key informant (KI) interviews were conducted with stakeholders in antenatal care and genetic services. Seven focus group discussions were held with a total of 56 Public Health Midwives (PHMs), the health workers responsible for antenatal care at the field level. Transcripts for all interviews and FGDs were analyzed for key themes, and themes were categorized to address the specific aims of the project. Results: Antenatal genetic services play a minor role in antenatal care, with screening and diagnostic procedures available in the private sector and paid for out-of-pocket. KIs and PHMs expect that demand for antenatal genetic services will increase as patients’ purchasing power and knowledge grow but note that prohibitive abortion laws limit the ability of patients to act on test results. Genetic services compete for limited financial and human resources in the free public health system, and inadequate information on the prevalence of congenital disorders limits the ability to understand whether funding for services related to those disorders should be increased. A number of alternatives to scaling up antenatal genetic services within the free health system might be better suited to the Sri Lankan structural and social context. Conclusions: Scaling up antenatal genetic services within the public health system is not feasible in the current financial, legal, and human resource context. Yet current availability and utilization patterns contribute to regional and economic disparities, suggesting that stasis will not bring continued improvements in maternal and child health. More information on the burden of congenital disorders is necessary to fully understand if and how antenatal genetic service availability should be increased in Sri Lanka, but even before that information is gathered, examination of policies for patient referral, termination of pregnancy, and government support for individuals with genetic disease are steps that might bring extend improvements and reduce disparity in maternal and child health.
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Administrative reform is a challenging endeavor for both developed and developing countries alike. For developing countries, the challenge is greater because numerous reforms are implemented concurrently sometimes under conditions of resource scarcity and political instability. So far there is no consensus as to what makes some reforms succeed and others fail. The current study seeks to fill that gap by offering an empirical comparative analysis of the administrative reforms initiated in Uganda and Tanzania since the early 1990s. The purpose of the study is to explain the similarities and differences, and give reasons for the successes and failures of the reform programs in the two countries. It focuses on four major areas; the size of the civil service, pay reform, capacity building, and ethics and accountability. Data were collected via in-depth face to face interviews with 35 key government officials and the content analysis of various documents. The results indicate that the reforms generated initial substantial reduction in the size of the public services in both countries. In Uganda, the traditional civil service was reduced from 140,500 in 1990 to 41,730 in 2004; while in Tanzania Ministries, Departments, and Agencies were reduced by 25%. Pay reform has generated substantial increases in civil servants’ salaries in both countries but in Uganda, the government has not been able to abide by the pay strategy while in Tanzania the strategy guides the increments. Civil Service capacity building efforts have focused on enhancing the skills of the personnel. Training needs assessments were undertaken in all ministries in Uganda and a training policy was formulated. In Tanzania, the training needs assessments are still under way and a training policy has not yet been developed. Ethics and accountability are great challenges in both countries, but in Tanzania, there is more political will and commitment to improve the integrity of the civil service. The findings reveal that although Uganda started the reform with much more rigor and initial success, Tanzania has surpassed it and has a more stable, consistent, and promising reform record. This is because Uganda’s leadership lacks political legitimacy. The country has since the late 1990s experienced a civil war in the northern and western parts of the country while Tanzania has benefitted from relative peace and high level political legitimacy.
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To achieve academic success, children with learning-related disabilities often receive special education supports at school. Currently, Canada does not have a federal department or integrated national system of education. Instead, each province and territory has a separate department or ministry that is responsible for the organization and delivery of education, including special education, at the elementary level. At the macro (national) level, inclusive education is the policy across Canada. However, each province and territory has its own legislation, definitions, and policies mandating special education services. These variations result in little consistency at the micro (individual school) level. Differences between eligibility requirements, supports offered, and delivery methods may present challenges for highly mobile families who must navigate new special education systems on behalf of their children with medical or learning challenges. One of the defining features of the Canadian military lifestyle is geographic mobility. As a result, many families are tasked with navigating new school systems for their children, a task that may be more difficult when children require special education services. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of geographic mobility on Canadian military families and their children’s access to special education services. The secondary objective was to gain insight into supports that helped facilitate access to services, as well as supports that participants believe would have helped facilitate access. A qualitative approach, interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), was employed due to of its focus on individuals’ experiences and their understandings of a particular phenomenon. IPA allowed participants to reflect on the significance of their experiences, while the researcher engaged with these reflections to make sense of the meanings associated with their experiences. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with civilian caregivers who have a child with special education needs. An interview guide and probes were used to elicit rich, detailed, first-person accounts of their experiences navigating new special education systems. The main themes that emerged from the participants’ combined experiences addressed the emotional components of experiencing a transition, factors that may facilitate access to special education services, and career implications associated with accessing and maintaining special education services. Findings from the study illustrate that Canadian families experience many, and often times severe, barriers to accessing special education services after a posting. Furthermore, the impacts reported throughout the study echo the existing American literature on geographic mobility and access to special education services. Building on the literature, this study also highlights the need for further research exploring factors that create unique barriers to access in a Canadian context, resulting from the current special education climate, military policies, and military family support services.
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The 2015 Corridor Management Plan for the Iowa Great River Road is modeled after similar plans for other National Scenic Byways: it is a dynamic, written document that describes the broad range of goals, objectives, policies, programs, projects and activities which can assist with protecting the intrinsic resources of a byway; interpreting the engaging stories of the byway; and promoting and presenting the byway with services and amenities to meet the needs and expectations of the traveling public.
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The purpose of this paper is to describe and demonstrate some of the advanced behavioural features currently being developed for the building-EXODUS evacuation model. These advanced features involve the ability to specify roles for particular individuals during the evacuation. With these enhancements to the Behavioural Submodel of building-EXODUS, it is possible to include a number of procedural and behavioural aspects previously ignored in evacuation simulations. These include the behavioural aspect of group bonding, the procedural aspects involved with the role of the fire warden and rescue operations undertaken by the fire services. The importance of these enhancements are discussed and demonstrated through three simple simulations.
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Management of riverine and coastal ecosystems warrants enhanced understanding of how different stakeholders perceive and depend upon different kinds of ecosystem services. Employing a mixed methods approach, this study compares and contrasts the use and perceptions of upstream residents, downstream residents, tourism officials, and conservation organizations regarding the value of 30 ecosystem services provided by the Wami River and its estuary in Tanzania, and investigates their perceptions of the main threats to this system. Our findings reveal that all of the stakeholder groups place a high value on the provision of domestic water, habitat for wild plants and animals, tourism, and erosion control, and a relatively low value on the prevention of saltwater intrusion, refuge from predators, spiritual fulfillment, nonrecreational hunting, and the provision of traditional medications and inorganic materials for construction. Differences emerge, however, between the groups in the value assigned to the conservation of riverine and estuarine fauna and the provision of raw materials for building and handicrafts. Declining fish populations and an increasing human population are identified by the residents and conservation employees, respectively, as their prime concerns regarding the future conditions of the Wami River and its estuary. These groups also acknowledge increasing salinity levels and the loss of mangroves as other key concerns. The identification of these mutual interests and shared concerns can help build common ground among stakeholders while the recognition of potential tensions can assist managers in balancing and reconciling the multiple needs and values of these different groups.
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There is an increasing emphasis on the restoration of ecosystem services as well as of biodiversity, especially where restoration projects are planned at a landscape scale. This increase in the diversity of restoration aims has a number of conceptual and practical implications for the way that restoration projects are monitored and evaluated. Landscape-scale projects require monitoring of not only ecosystem services and biodiversity but also of ecosystem processes since these can underpin both. Using the experiences gained at a landscape-scale wetland restoration project in the UK, we discuss a number of issues that need to be considered, including the choice of metrics for monitoring ecosystem services and the difficulties of assessing the interactions between ecosystem processes, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Particular challenges that we identify, using two pilot data sets, include the decoupling of monetary metrics used for monitoring ecosystem services from biophysical change on the ground and the wide range of factors external to a project that influence the monitoring results. We highlight the fact that the wide range of metrics necessary to evaluate the ecosystem service, ecosystem process, and biodiversity outcomes of landscape-scale projects presents a number of practical challenges, including the need for high levels of varied expertise, high costs, incommensurate monitoring outputs, and the need for careful management of monitoring results, especially where they may be used in making decisions about the relative importance of project aims.