Cancer-related symptom clusters for symptom management in outpatients after commencing adjuvant chemotherapy, at 6 months, and 12 months

Goals of work: The aim of this secondary data analysis was to investigate symptom clusters over time for symptom management of a patient group after commencing adjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and methods: A prospective longitudinal study of 219 cancer outpatients conducted within 1 month of commencing chemotherapy (T1), 6 months (T2), and 12 months (T3) later. Patients' distress levels were assessed for 42 physical symptoms on a clinician-modified Rotterdam Symptom Checklist. Symptom clusters were identified in exploratory factor analyses at each time. Symptom inclusion in clusters was determined from structure coefficients. Symptoms could be associated with multiple clusters. Stability over time was determined from symptom cluster composition and the proportion of symptoms in the initial symptom clusters replicated at later times. Main results Fatigue and daytime sleepiness were the most prevalent distressing symptoms over time. The median number of concurrent distressing symptoms approximated 7, over time. Five consistent clusters were identified at T1, 2, and T3. An additional two clusters were identified at 12 months, possibly due to less variation in distress levels. Weakness and fatigue were each associated with two, four, and five symptom clusters at T1, T2, and T3, respectively, potentially suggesting different causal mechanisms. Conclusion: Stability is a necessary attribute of symptom clusters, but definitional clarification is required. We propose that a core set of concurrent symptoms identifies each symptom cluster, signifying a common cause. Additional related symptoms may be included over time. Further longitudinal investigation is required to identify symptom clusters and the underlying causes.

The use of supply chain management to reduce delays : Malaysian public sector construction projects

Construction delays are a critical problem for Malaysian public sector projects. These delays have been blamed mainly on inefficient traditional construction practices that continue to dominate the current industry. This paper reports the progress to date of a Ph.D. research project aimed at developing a framework to utilize Supply Chain Management (SCM) tools to improve the time performance of Malaysian Government projects. The potential of SCM has been identified for public sector governance and its use in Malaysia is now being considered within the strategy of the Malaysian Construction Industry Master Plan (2006-2015). Encouraged by success in the UK, there is a cautious optimism concerning the successful application of SCM in Malaysia. This paper considers delay as a problem in Malaysian public sector projects, establishes the need to embrace SCM and then elucidates the need and strategies for the development of a delay reduction framework. A literature review, survey mechanism and structured interview schedule will be undertaken to achieve the research objectives. The final research outcome will be a framework that addresses root delay contributors (“pathogens”) and applies SCM tools for their mitigation.

Malaysia high-rise residential property management : 2004-2010 trends and scenario

Property management requires an understanding of infrastructure management, service life planning and quality management. Today, people are beginning to realize that effective property management in high-rise residential property can sustain the property value and maintaining high returns on their investment. The continuous growth of high-rise residential properties indicates that there is a need for an effective property management system to provide a sustainable high-rise residential property development. As intensive as these studies are, they do not attempt to investigate the correlation between property management systems with the trends of Malaysia high-rise residential property development. By examining the trends and scenario of Malaysia high-rise residential property development, this paper aims to gain an understanding of impacts from the effectiveness of property management in this scope area. Findings from this scoping paper will assist in providing a greater understanding and possible solutions for the current Malaysian property management systems for the expanding high-rise residential unit market. With current high rise units in excess of 1.3 million and increasing, the need for more cost effective management systems are of highly important to the Malaysian Property Industry.

Embedding gifted education in preservice teacher education : a collaborative school-university approach

A country’s prosperity relies on the creative potential of its people. Educating gifted students must be a priority for educators and education systems if society is to capitalise on their potential to contribute to an economical and sustainable future. Given the importance of teachers in supporting academic achievement, educating preservice teachers on how to cater for gifted students commences the process as they can foster the implementation of current teaching practices that draw on substantial research into the education of gifted children. This study investigated preservice teachers’ perceptions for teaching gifted students after participating in a school-based intervention with gifted students. The teachers implemented differentiated curriculum activities that catered for the diverse needs of learners. Participants (n=22) were surveyed at the end of the program on their perceptions of how to differentiate the curriculum for meeting the needs of the student. Analysis of the survey indicated these preservice teachers agreed or strongly agreed they had developed skills in curriculum planning (91%) with well-designed activities (96%), and lesson preparation skills (96%). They also claimed they were enthusiastic for teaching (91%) and had understanding of school practices and policies (96%). However, only 46% agreed they had knowledge of syllabus documents with 50% claiming an ability to provide written feedback on the student’s learning. Furthermore, only 64% suggested they had educational language from the syllabus and effective student management strategies. Preservice teachers require direction on how to cater for diversity by building knowledge from direct gifted education experiences. The survey may be used as a diagnostic tool to determine areas for developing education experiences related to the education of the gifted for preservice teachers.

Exporting educational services : an Australian university’s experience in delivering offshore project management programs

Increasingly, Australian universities are facing the challenges of global education. While overseas students studying in Australia provide the primary source of export earnings for educational institutions, a number of institutions, including QUT, are also involved in international trade in educational services by providing services offshore. This paper discusses driving forces behind moves by Australian universities to enter the international education market. It then briefly describes Queensland University of Technology’s internationalisation strategy. The paper concludes with a case study describing how the School of Construction Management has pioneered the development of offshore courses at QUT. The introduction of the Master of Project Management and Graduate Diploma of Project Management programs in Singapore in November 1993 represented QUT’s first experience in this area. With the experience of 18 months of operation, the School now has the opportunity to reflect on the outcomes of this venture and consider future options.

School-based experiences : developing primary science preservice teachers' practice

Reviews into teacher education emphasise the need for preservice teachers to have more school-based experiences. In this study, a school-based experience was organised within a nine-week science curriculum university unit that allowed preservice teachers’ repeated experiences in teaching primary science. This research uses a survey, questionnaire with extended written responses, and researcher observations to investigate preservice teachers’ (n=38) learning experiences in two school settings. Survey results indicated that the majority of these preservice teachers either agreed or strongly agreed that school-based experiences developed their: personal-professional skill development (100%); system requirements (range: 81-100%); teaching practices (81-100%); student behaviour management (range: 94-100%); providing student feedback (89-94%); and reflection on practice (92-100%). Qualitative data provided insights into their development particularly for science content knowledge and receiving positive reinforcement on effective teaching behaviours. According to these preservice teachers, the school-based experiences facilitated “teachable moments – having the knowledge or skills to run with students’ questions or ideas” and allowed preservice teachers to “critically reflect between groups to make the task flow better”. Embedding school-based experiences needs to be part of each and every preservice teacher education unit so preservice teachers can develop confidence, knowledge and skills within authentic school contexts.

Leg Clubs® : a clinically and cost-effective approach to lower limb management

Leg ulcers affect 55000-90000 people, predominantly aged over 65, in the UK at any one time. Traditional care, delivered in people’s homes by district nurses or in GP clinics, is costly and often not effective, with slow healing rates and a high incidence of recurrence. A social model of leg ulcer clinics developed by the author has been shown to improve healing and reduce recurrence within a highly cost-effective framework that delivers genuine patient empowerment, public health education and social outreach. This paper outlines the rationale for the Leg Club, its clinical and social impact, and the infrastructure behind it. It also considers the challenges to establishing and running a Leg Club.

Innovation networks in the construction arena : the strategic management of mixed enterprises

The building and construction sector is one of the five largest contributors to the Australian economy and is a key performance component in the economy of many other jurisdictions. However, the ongoing viability of this sector is increasingly reliant on its ability to foster and transfer innovated products and practices. Interorganisational networks, which bring together key industry stakeholders and facilitate the flows of information, resources and trust necessary to secure innovation, have emerged as a key growth strategy within this and other arenas. The blending of organisations, resources and purposes creates new, hybrid institutional forms that draw on a mix of contract, structure and interpersonal relationship as integration processes. This paper argues that hybrid networked arrangements, because they incorporate relational elements, require management strategies and techniques that not always synonymous with conventional management approaches, including those used within the building and construction sector. It traces the emergence of the Construction Innovation Project in Australia as a hybrid institutional arrangement moulding public, private and academic stakeholders of the building and construction industry into a coherent collective force aimed at fostering innovation and its application within all levels of the industry. Specifically, the paper examines the Construction Innovation Project to ascertain the impact of relational governance and its management to harness and leverage the skills, resources and capacities of members to secure innovative outcomes. Finally, the paper offers some prospects to guide the ongoing work of this body and any other charged with a similar integrative responsibility.

Management [4th Asia Pacific Edition]

The fourth edition of this popular text has been throughly updated, continuing its strong emphasis on the importance of the Asian region to contemporary Australian and New Zealand organizations. Many Asian case examples are featured to illustrate key management concepts. ----- ----- ----- Joining the author team for this edition and enhancing this edition's critical analysis of management theory and applications are the best-selling authors from another of Wiley's undergraduate introductory management texts - Management: Core Concepts and Applications, 2nd Australasian edition (Davidson et al.).----- ----- ----- This new edition also discusses the impact of recent events such as the global financial crisis on the management of organisations, both during the crisis and in its aftermath.----- ----- ----- Of course, Management, 4th Asia- Pacific edition also retains the features that made it so popular with students and lecturers in the earlier editions: a balanced coverage of small to medium-sized enterprises and larger multinational corporations an emphasis on the need for business activities to be sustainable in terms of preserving the welfare of future generations the Career Readiness Workbook at the end of the book, which includes a range of individual and group activities to encourage the practical applications of management theory. With its clear insights into dynamics of management in the workplace of today and the future, Management, 4th Asia-Pacific edition provides a sound basis for the contemporary undergraduate study of introductory management.

Implementing an employee performance management system in a nonprofit organization

Nonprofit organizations are not exempt from the imperatives of employee attraction, retention, and motivation. As competition for staff, donors, and funding increases, the need to manage employee performance will continue to be a critical human resource management issue. This article outlines a study of the introduction of a performance management system in an Australian nonprofit organization and analyzes its design and implementation. It explores how performance management can be introduced and used effectively within a nonprofit environment to benefit staff and the organization. However, the use of performance management is not without its challenges, and the research also identified initial employee resistance and a resulting initial spike in labor turnover. However, findings indicate that if nonprofit organizations are willing to undertake consultation with staff and ensure that the organization's specific context, values, and mission are reflected in the performance management system, it can be a useful tool for managers and a direct benefit to employees.

Fitting airport privatisation to purpose : aligning governance, time and management focus

Where airports were once the sole responsibility of their governments, liberalisation of economies has seen administrative interests in airport spaces divested increasingly towards market led authority. Extant literature suggests that actions in decision spaces can be described under broad idealised forms of governance. However in looking at a sample of 18 different airports it is apparent that these classic models are insufficient to appreciate the contextual complexity of each case. Issues of institutional arrangements, privatisation, and management focus are reviewed against existing governance modes to produce a model for informing privatisation decisions, based on the contextual needs of the individual airport and region. Expanding governance modes to include emergent airport arrangements both contribute to the existing literature, and provides a framework to assist policy makers and those charged with the operation of airports to design effective governance models. In progressing this framework, contributions are made to government decision makers for the development of new, or review of existing strategies for privatisation, while the private sector can identify the intent and expectations of privatisation initiatives to make better informed decisions.

The mediating effects of the time structure on the relationships between time management behaviour, job satisfaction and psychological wellbeing

This article examined the relationship between time structure and Macan's process model of time management. This study proposed that time structure—‘appraisal of effective time usage’—would be a more parsimonious mediator than perceived control over time in the relationship between time management behaviours and outcome variables, such as job satisfaction and psychological well-being. Alternative structure models were compared using a sample of 111 university students. Model 1 tested Macan's process model of time management with perceived control over time as the mediator. Model 2 replaced perceived control over time by the construct of time structure. Model 3 examined the possibility of perceived control over time and time structure as being parallel mediators of the relationships between time management and outcomes. Results of this study showed that Model 1 and Model 2 fitted the data equally well. On the other hand, the mediated effects were small and partial in both models. This pattern of results calls for reassessment of the process model.

Strategic management practices in the construction industry : a study of Indonesian enterprises

Since the establishment of the first national strategic development plan in the early 1970s, the construction industry has played an important role in terms of the economic, social and cultural development of Indonesia. The industry’s contribution to Indonesia’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased from 3.9% in 1973 to 7.7% in 2007. Business Monitoring International (2009) forecasts that Indonesia is home to one of the fastest-growing construction industries in Asia despite the average construction growth rate being expected to remain under 10% over the period 2006 – 2010. Similarly, Howlett and Powell (2006) place Indonesia as one of the 20 largest construction markets in 2010. Although the prospects for the Indonesian construction industry are now very promising, many local construction firms still face serious difficulties, such as poor performance and low competitiveness. There are two main reasons behind this problem: the environment that they face is not favourable; the other is the lack of strategic direction to improve competitiveness and performance. Furthermore, although strategic management has now become more widely used by many large construction firms in developed countries, practical examples and empirical studies related to the Indonesian construction industry remain scarce. In addition, research endeavours related to these topics in developing countries appear to be limited. This has potentially become one of the factors hampering efforts to guide Indonesian construction enterprises. This research aims to construct a conceptual model to enable Indonesian construction enterprises to develop a sound long-term corporate strategy that generates competitive advantage and superior performance. The conceptual model seeks to address the main prescription of a dynamic capabilities framework (Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997; Teece, 2007) within the context of the Indonesian construction industry. It is hypothesised that in a rapidly changing and varied environment, competitive success arises from the continuous development and reconfiguration of firm’s specific assets achieving competitive advantage is not only dependent on the exploitation of specific assets/capabilities, but on the exploitation of all of the assets and capabilities combinations in the dynamic capabilities framework. Thus, the model is refined through sequential statistical regression analyses of survey results with a sample size of 120 valid responses. The results of this study provide empirical evidence in support of the notion that a competitive advantage is achieved via the implementation of a dynamic capability framework as an important way for a construction enterprise to improve its organisational performance. The characteristics of asset-capability combinations were found to be significant determinants of the competitive advantage of the Indonesian construction enterprises, and that such advantage sequentially contributes to organisational performance. If a dynamic capabilities framework can work in the context of Indonesia, it suggests that the framework has potential applicability in other emerging and developing countries. This study also demonstrates the importance of the multi-stage nature of the model which provides a rich understanding of the dynamic process by which asset-capability should be exploited in combination by the construction firms operating in varying levels of hostility. Such findings are believed to be useful to both academics and practitioners, however, as this research represents a dynamic capabilities framework at the enterprise level, future studies should continue to explore and examine the framework in other levels of strategic management in construction as well as in other countries where different cultures or similar conditions prevails.

Evaluating the influences of stakeholder management on construction project quality

The issue of ensuring that construction projects achieve high quality outcomes continues to be an important consideration for key project stakeholders. Although a lot of quality practices have been done within the industry, establishment and achievement of reasonable levels of quality in construction projects continues to be a problem. While some studies into the introduction and development of quality practices and stakeholder management in the construction industry have been undertaken separately, no major studies have so far been completed that examine in depth how quality management practices that specifically address stakeholders’ perspectives of quality can be utilised to contribute to the ultimate constructed quality of projects. This paper encompasses and summarizes a review of the literature related to previous research undertaken on quality within the industry, focuses on the benefits and shortcomings, together with examining the concept of integrating stakeholder perspectives of project quality for improvement of outcomes throughout the project lifecycle. Findings discussed in this paper reveal a pressing need for investigation, development and testing of a framework to facilitate better implementation of quality management practices and thus achievement of better quality outcomes within the construction industry. The framework will incorporate and integrate the views of stakeholders on what constitutes final project quality to be utilised in developing better quality management planning and systems aimed ultimately at achieving better project quality delivery.