West German bank advertising and the East German public:a study in intercultural advertising communication

In the wake of German unification, initial advertising by many West German companies in the new federal states (the former German Democratic Republic - GDR) proved largely ineffective and many advertisers were forced to change their approach to this new market. The advertising task proved even more complicated for banks, because banking existed only at the most basic level in the former GDR. Furthermore, under the old regime, "capitalist" banks represented the very antithesis of the GDR's founding ideology. This analysis of advertising by West German banks - in particular Dresdner Bank - in the new federal states brings together elements of discourse and communication theory, particularly Relevance Theory [Sperber and Wilson 1986], with the overall objective of designing a model of intercultural advertising communication. A series of simple association tasks based on texts from pre-Wende advertisements was completed by a sample of advertisees (as they are called in the study) in Leipzig. The research shows the lack of relevance between the advertiser's understanding of concepts such as "credit", "bank" etc. and the associations which these concepts have for the sample of advertisees. Further analysis reveals that this lack of relevance occurs because advertisers and advertisees assign differing contexts to these concepts when they communicate through advertising. The study concludes that these different contexts, governed by the contrasting ideological, economic and linguistic environments of the advertisers and advertisees, interfere with the effective communication of the advertising message.

Organisational change and safety culture: the impact of communication

This research examines and explains the links between safety culture and communication. Safety culture is a concept that in recent years has gained prominence but there has been little applied research conducted to investigate the meaning of the concept in 'real life' settings. This research focused on a Train Operating Company undergoing change in a move towards privatisation. These changes were evident in the management of safety, the organisation of the industry and internally in their management. The Train Operating Company's management took steps to improve their safety culture and communications through the development of a cascade communication structure. The research framework employed a qualitative methodology in order to investigate the effect of the new system on safety culture. Findings of the research were that communications in the organisation failed to be effective for a number of reasons, including both cultural and logistical problems. The cultural problems related to a lack of trust in the organisation by the management and the workforce, the perception of communications as management propaganda, and asyntonic communications between those involved, whilst logistical problems related to the inherent difficulties of communicating over a geographically distributed network. An organisational learning framework was used to explain the results. It is postulated that one of the principal reasons why change, either to the safety culture or to communications, did not occur was because of the organisation's inability to learn. The research has also shown the crucial importance of trust between the members of the organisation, as this was one of the fundamental reasons why the safety culture did not change, and why safety management systems were not fully implemented. This is consistent with the notion of mutual trust in the HSC (1993) definition of safety culture. This research has highlighted its relevance to safety culture and its importance for organisational change.

Examining the information and communication technologies enabling servitized manufacture

Services-led competitive strategies are critically important to Western manufacturers. This paper contributes to our basic knowledge of such strategies by examining the enabling information and communication technologies that successfully servitized manufacturers appear to be adopting. Although these are preliminary findings from a longer-term research programme, through this paper we seek to offer immediate assistance to manufacturers who wish to understand how they might exploit the servitization movement.

The experience of delivering case award research in a public sector setting

The CASE Award PhD is a relatively new approach to completing academic research degrees, aligning the ideals of comprehensive research training and cross-collaboration between academics and organisations. As the initial wave of CASE funded PhD research begins to near completion, and indeed become evident through the publication of results, now is an appropriate time to begin the evaluation process of how to successfully deliver a CASE PhD, and to analyse the best practice approaches of completing a CASE Award with an organisation. This article intends to offer a picture into the CASE PhD process, with a focus on methods of communication to successfully implement this kind of research in collaboration with an organisation.

Analyze impact of context information on rate adaptation algorithm in vehicular communication

Nowadays, road safety and traffic congestion are major concerns worldwide. This is why research on vehicular communication is very vital. In static scenarios vehicles behave typically like in an office network where nodes transmit without moving and with no defined position. This paper analyses the impact of context information on existing popular rate adaptation algorithms. Our simulation was done in MATLAB by observing the impact of context information on these algorithms. Simulation was performed for both static and mobile cases.Our simulations are based on IEEE 802.11p wireless standard. For static scenarios vehicles do not move and without defined positions, while for the mobile case, vehicles are mobile with uniformly selected speed and randomized positions. Network performance are analysed using context information. Our results show that in mobility when context information is used, the system performance can be improved for all three rate adaptation algorithms. That can be explained by that with range checking, when many vehicles are out of communication range, less vehicles contend for network resources, thereby increasing the network performances. © 2013 IEEE.

Leadership in high-value services for manufacturers:information and communication technologies and the delivery of advanced services

Services-led competitive strategies are critically important to western manufacturers. This paper contributes to our foundational knowledge of such strategies by examining the enabling information and communication technologies that successfully servitized manufacturers appear to be adopting. Although these are preliminary findings from a longer-term research programme, through this article we seek to offer immediate assistance to manufacturers who wish to understand how they might exploit the servitization movement.

The role of information and communication technology in small Italian logistics enterprises

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is widely regarded as a key integration enabler in contemporary supply chain configurations. Furthermore, recent years have seen the vertical disintegration of supply chains as increasing numbers of manufacturers and retailers outsource significant parts of their supply chain functionality. In this environment, Third Party Logistics (3PL) providers - the majority of which are small companies - play a pivotal role. This raises important questions about the usage of ICT in this sector. However, there is a paucity of research in the field of small 3PLs with little empirical investigation into the usage of ICT by such firms. This paper presents the results of a survey on ICT systems usage in a sample of small Italian 3PLs. The results provide a technological profile of the surveyed companies, as well as an analysis of the role of ICT in customising services and of the factors influencing technology adoption.

Process and performance in international collaborative research

Motivated by policy goals to develop international research capability and our experiences of collaborative research, we wanted to learn more about the factors that influence success in collaborative research. This article presents a review of the academic literature on collaborative research, focusing on multinational teams doing international comparative research. We address the question ‘what accounts for variation in process and performance of collaborative research projects?’, through 11 themes: context; vision; reward and commitment; leadership; structure; contract; task capability; sociability; communication; finance; rhythm and pace. We then propose an agenda for future research with an analytic framework and, finally, our conclusions.

Understanding key mechanism by which internal communication influences prosocial service behaviors of front-line employees

This paper contributes to the prosocial service behavior (PSB) literature by investigating the nature of the relationships between internal communication and PSBs, and whether role stress and organizational commitment mediate these relationships. According to the literature, internal communication plays an important role in influencing FLEs job attitudes and behaviors, as well as reducing role stress. Data collected from FLEs in a UK based service organization was used to test our conceptual framework. The results show that FLE perceptions of internal communication practices influence their role stress and organizational commitment, which, in turn, affect the performance of PSBs. Our findings highlight the significance of studying role stress and organizational commitment as mediators in the relationship between internal communication and PSBs, and shed light on the mechanisms by which internal communication influences PSBs. The limitations of the study are then sketched, and suggestions for future research are also made.

Perspectives of carers on medication management in dementia:lessons from collaboratively developing a research proposal

Background: The need for carers to manage medication-related problems for people with dementia living in the community raises dilemmas, which can be identified by carers and people with dementia as key issues for developing carer-relevant research projects.A research planning Public Patient Involvement (PPI) workshop using adapted focus group methodology was held at the Alzheimer's Society's national office, involving carers of people with dementia who were current members of the Alzheimer's Society Research Network (ASRN) in dialogue with health professionals aimed to identify key issues in relation to medication management in dementia from the carer viewpoint. The group was facilitated by a specialist mental health pharmacist, using a topic guide developed systematically with carers, health professionals and researchers. Audio-recordings and field notes were made at the time and were transcribed and analysed thematically. The participants included nine carers in addition to academics, clinicians, and staff from DeNDRoN (Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network) and the Alzheimer's Society. Findings. Significant themes, for carers, which emerged from the workshop were related to: (1) medication usage and administration practicalities, (2) communication barriers and facilitators, (3) bearing and sharing responsibility and (4) weighing up medication risks and benefits. These can form the basis for more in-depth qualitative research involving a broader, more diverse sample. Discussion. The supported discussion enabled carer voices and perspectives to be expressed and to be linked to the process of identifying problems in medications management as directly experienced by carers. This was used to inform an agenda for research proposals which would be meaningful for carers and people with dementia. © 2014 Poland et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Information and communication technology adoption in the Italian road freight haulage industry

Despite the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) in the management of transport and logistics systems, there is a shortage of studies in the road freight haulage sector. This paper is aimed at filling this void through an exploratory survey on ICT adoption and the influencing factors carried out in the Italian road transport market. The paper provides a review of the previous research on this topic that allows the identification of research gaps that have been addressed through a questionnaire survey. The findings provide evidence of a passive stance on ICT usage characterised by the adoption of isolated applications. The financial risk associated with technology investment and human resources are the main barriers to ICT adoption, while the improvement of service level and the reliability of transport operations emerge as stimulating factors. The results suggest that the potential benefits of technology have not been fully exploited and a risk-sensitive stance on ICT is evident preventing the full incorporation of ICT into business processes.

Shannon capacity of nonlinear communication channels

The exponentially increasing demand on operational data rate has been met with technological advances in telecommunication systems such as advanced multilevel and multidimensional modulation formats, fast signal processing, and research into new different media for signal transmission. Since the current communication channels are essentially nonlinear, estimation of the Shannon capacity for modern nonlinear communication channels is required. This PhD research project has targeted the study of the capacity limits of different nonlinear communication channels with a view to enable a significant enhancement in the data rate of the currently deployed fiber networks. In the current study, a theoretical framework for calculating the Shannon capacity of nonlinear regenerative channels has been developed and illustrated on the example of the proposed here regenerative Fourier transform (RFT). Moreover, the maximum gain in Shannon capacity due to regeneration (that is, the Shannon capacity of a system with ideal regenerators – the upper bound on capacity for all regenerative schemes) is calculated analytically. Thus, we derived a regenerative limit to which the capacity of any regenerative system can be compared, as analogue of the seminal linear Shannon limit. A general optimization scheme (regenerative mapping) has been introduced and demonstrated on systems with different regenerative elements: phase sensitive amplifiers and the proposed here multilevel regenerative schemes: the regenerative Fourier transform and the coupled nonlinear loop mirror.

Connection of Network Sensors to Distributed Information Measurement and Control System for Education and Research

The development of the distributed information measurement and control system for optical spectral research of particle beam and plasma objects and the execution of laboratory works on Physics and Engineering Department of Petrozavodsk State University are described. At the hardware level the system is represented by a complex of the automated workplaces joined into computer network. The key element of the system is the communication server, which supports the multi-user mode and distributes resources among clients, monitors the system and provides secure access. Other system components are formed by equipment servers (CАМАC and GPIB servers, a server for the access to microcontrollers MCS-196 and others) and the client programs that carry out data acquisition, accumulation and processing and management of the course of the experiment as well. In this work the designed by the authors network interface is discussed. The interface provides the connection of measuring and executive devices to the distributed information measurement and control system via Ethernet. This interface allows controlling of experimental parameters by use of digital devices, monitoring of experiment parameters by polling of analog and digital sensors. The device firmware is written in assembler language and includes libraries for Ethernet-, IP-, TCP- и UDP-packets forming.

Public scientific communication on Twitter:visual analytic approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess high-dimensional visualisation, combined with pattern matching, as an approach to observing dynamic changes in the ways people tweet about science topics. Design/methodology/approach - The high-dimensional visualisation approach was applied to three scientific topics to test its effectiveness for longitudinal analysis of message framing on Twitter over two disjoint periods in time. The paper uses coding frames to drive categorisation and visual analytics of tweets discussing the science topics. Findings - The findings point to the potential of this mixed methods approach, as it allows sufficiently high sensitivity to recognise and support the analysis of non-trending as well as trending topics on Twitter. Research limitations/implications - Three topics are studied and these illustrate a range of frames, but results may not be representative of all scientific topics. Social implications - Funding bodies increasingly encourage scientists to participate in public engagement. As social media provides an avenue actively utilised for public communication, understanding the nature of the dialog on this medium is important for the scientific community and the public at large. Originality/value - This study differs from standard approaches to the analysis of microblog data, which tend to focus on machine driven analysis large-scale datasets. It provides evidence that this approach enables practical and effective analysis of the content of midsize to large collections of microposts.

Data Protection and Packet Mode in the Distributed Information Measurement and Control System for Research in Physics

The present paper is devoted to creation of cryptographic data security and realization of the packet mode in the distributed information measurement and control system that implements methods of optical spectroscopy for plasma physics research and atomic collisions. This system gives a remote access to information and instrument resources within the Intranet/Internet networks. The system provides remote access to information and hardware resources for the natural sciences within the Intranet/Internet networks. The access to physical equipment is realized through the standard interface servers (PXI, CАМАC, and GPIB), the server providing access to Ethernet devices, and the communication server, which integrates the equipment servers into a uniform information system. The system is used to make research task in optical spectroscopy, as well as to support the process of education at the Department of Physics and Engineering of Petrozavodsk State University.