Managing digital coordination of design: emerging hybrid practices in an institutionalized project setting

What happens when digital coordination practices are introduced into the institutionalized setting of an engineering project? This question is addressed through an interpretive study that examines how a shared digital model becomes used in the late design stages of a major station refurbishment project. The paper contributes by mobilizing the idea of ‘hybrid practices’ to understand the diverse patterns of activity that emerge to manage digital coordination of design. It articulates how engineering and architecture professions develop different relationships with the shared model; the design team negotiates paper-based practices across organizational boundaries; and diverse practitioners probe the potential and limitations of the digital infrastructure. While different software packages and tools have become linked together into an integrated digital infrastructure, these emerging hybrid practices contrast with the interactions anticipated in practice and policy guidance and presenting new opportunities and challenges for managing project delivery. The study has implications for researchers working in the growing field of empirical work on engineering project organizations as it shows the importance of considering, and suggests new ways to theorise, the introduction of digital coordination practices into these institutionalized settings.

Beyond tokenism? Community-led planning and rational choices: findings from participants in local agenda-setting at the neighbourhood scale in England

The article confronts some key issues raised in the literature on public participation via a series of interrogatory questions drawn from rational choice theory. These are considered in relation to the design and process of public participation opportunities in planning and wider processes of local governance at the neighbourhood scale. In doing this, the article draws on recent research that has looked in some depth at a form of community-led planning (CLP) in England. The motives and expectations of participants, the abilities of participants, as well as the conditions in which participation takes place are seen as important factors. It is contended that the issues raised by rational choice theory are pertinent to emerging efforts to engage communities. As such, the article concludes that advocates of public participation or community engagement should not be afraid of responding to the challenges posed by questions of motive and reward of participants if lasting and worthwhile participation is to be established. Indeed, questions such as 'what's in it for me?' should be regarded as legitimate, necessary and indeed standard, in order to co-devise meaningful and durable participation opportunities and appropriate institutional environments. However, it is also maintained that wider considerations and capacity questions will also need to be confronted if participation is to become embedded as part of participatory neighbourhood-scale planning.

Recommendations for the viability assessment of probiotics as concentrated cultures and in food matrices

Due to the fact that probiotic cells need to be alive when they are consumed, culture-based analysis (plate count) is critical in ascertaining the quality (numbers of viable cells) of probiotic products. Since probiotic cells are typically stressed, due to various factors related to their production, processing and formulation, the standard methodology for total plate counts tends to underestimate the cell numbers of these products. Furthermore, products such as microencapsulated cultures require modifications in the release and sampling procedure in order to correctly estimate viable counts. This review examines the enumeration of probiotic bacteria in the following commercial products: powders, microencapsulated cultures, frozen concentrates, capsules, foods and beverages. The parameters which are specifically examined include: sample preparation (rehydration, thawing), dilutions (homogenization, media) and plating (media, incubation) procedures. Recommendations are provided for each of these analytical steps to improve the accuracy of the analysis. Although the recommendations specifically target the analysis of probiotics, many will apply to the analysis of commercial lactic starter cultures used in food fermentations as well.

Benchmarking and setting intervention targets for key cell count parameters

Herd Companion uses routine milk‐recording records to generate twelve‐month rolling averages that indicate performance trends. This article looks at Herd Somatic Cell Count (SCC) and four other SCC‐related parameters from 252 National Milk Records (NMR) recorded herds to assess how each parameter correlates with the Herd SCC. The analysis provides evidence for the importance of targeting individual cows with high SCC recordings (>200,000 cells/ml and >500,000 cells/ml) and/or individual cows with repeatedly high SCC recordings (chronic high SCC) and/or cows that begin lactation with a high SCC recording (dry period infection) in order to achieve bulk milk Herd SCC below 200,000 cells/ml.

Asymmetric oligopoly and foreign direct investment: implications for host-country tax-setting

We present a duopoly model with heterogeneous firms that vary in cost-efficiency, each of which can choose to serve a foreign market by either exporting or local production. We do so to analyse the effects of a host-country corporate profit tax on both the scale and composition of FDI, and find that: strategic interaction between oligopolistic firms provides for a pattern of FDI that favours cost-inefficiency to the detriment of host-country welfare; and the host-country tax rate can be optimally used to avoid such patterns of FDI and instead promote direct investment by a relatively cost-efficient firm.

Sizing reserves within a landscape: the roles of villagers' reactions and the ecological-socioeconomic setting

Traditionally, siting and sizing decisions for parks and reserves reflected ecological characteristics but typically failed to consider ecological costs created from displaced resource collection, welfare costs on nearby rural people, and enforcement costs. Using a spatial game-theoretic model that incorporates the interaction of socioeconomic and ecological settings, we show how incorporating more recent mandates that include rural welfare and surrounding landscapes can result in very different optimal sizing decisions. The model informs our discussion of recent forest management in Tanzania, reserve sizing and siting decisions, estimating reserve effectiveness, and determining patterns of avoided forest degradation in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programs.

Limit operators, collective compactness, and the spectral theory of infinite matrices

In the first half of this memoir we explore the interrelationships between the abstract theory of limit operators (see e.g. the recent monographs of Rabinovich, Roch and Silbermann (2004) and Lindner (2006)) and the concepts and results of the generalised collectively compact operator theory introduced by Chandler-Wilde and Zhang (2002). We build up to results obtained by applying this generalised collectively compact operator theory to the set of limit operators of an operator (its operator spectrum). In the second half of this memoir we study bounded linear operators on the generalised sequence space , where and is some complex Banach space. We make what seems to be a more complete study than hitherto of the connections between Fredholmness, invertibility, invertibility at infinity, and invertibility or injectivity of the set of limit operators, with some emphasis on the case when the operator is a locally compact perturbation of the identity. Especially, we obtain stronger results than previously known for the subtle limiting cases of and . Our tools in this study are the results from the first half of the memoir and an exploitation of the partial duality between and and its implications for bounded linear operators which are also continuous with respect to the weaker topology (the strict topology) introduced in the first half of the memoir. Results in this second half of the memoir include a new proof that injectivity of all limit operators (the classic Favard condition) implies invertibility for a general class of almost periodic operators, and characterisations of invertibility at infinity and Fredholmness for operators in the so-called Wiener algebra. In two final chapters our results are illustrated by and applied to concrete examples. Firstly, we study the spectra and essential spectra of discrete Schrödinger operators (both self-adjoint and non-self-adjoint), including operators with almost periodic and random potentials. In the final chapter we apply our results to integral operators on .

Cognitive behaviour therapy for low self-esteem: A preliminary randomized controlled trial in a primary care setting

Background and Objectives Low self-esteem (LSE) is associated with psychiatric disorder, and is distressing and debilitating in its own right. Hence, it is frequent target for treatment in cognitive behavioural interventions, yet it has rarely been the primary focus for intervention. This paper reports on a preliminary randomized controlled trial of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for LSE using Fennell’s (1997) cognitive conceptualisation and transdiagnostic treatment approach ( [Fennell, 1997] and [Fennell, 1999]). Methods Twenty-two participants were randomly allocated to either immediate treatment (IT) (n = 11) or to a waitlist condition (WL) (n = 11). Treatment consisted of 10 sessions of individual CBT accompanied by workbooks. Participants allocated to the WL condition received the CBT intervention once the waitlist period was completed and all participants were followed up 11 weeks after completing CBT. Results The IT group showed significantly better functioning than the WL group on measures of LSE, overall functioning and depression and had fewer psychiatric diagnoses at the end of treatment. The WL group showed the same pattern of response to CBT as the group who had received CBT immediately. All treatment gains were maintained at follow-up assessment. Limitations The sample size is small and consists mainly of women with a high level of educational attainment and the follow-up period was relatively short. Conclusions These preliminary findings suggest that a focused, brief CBT intervention can be effective in treating LSE and associated symptoms and diagnoses in a clinically representative group of individuals with a range of different and co-morbid disorders.