A comparative study of hospital management in Great Britain and Brazil : cost information use

In Great Britain and Brazil healthcare is free at the point of delivery and based study only on citizenship. However, the British NHS is fifty-five years old and has undergone extensive reforms. The Brazilian SUS is barely fifteen years old. This research investigated the middle management mediation role within hospitals comparing managerial planning and control using cost information in Great Britain and Brazil. This investigation was conducted in two stages entailing quantitative and qualitative techniques. The first stage was a survey involving managers of 26 NHS Trusts in Great Britain and 22 public hospitals in Brazil. The second stage consisted of interviews, 10 in Great Britain and 22 in Brazil, conducted in four selected hospitals, two in each country. This research builds on the literature by investigating the interaction of contingency theory and modes of governance in a cross-national study in terms of public hospitals. It further builds on the existing literature by measuring managerial dimensions related to cost information usefulness. The project unveils the practice involved in planning and control processes. It highlights important elements such as the use of predictive models and uncertainty reduction when planning. It uncovers the different mechanisms employed on control processes. It also depicts that planning and control within British hospitals are structured procedures and guided by overall goals. In contrast, planning and control processes in Brazilian hospitals are accidental, involving more ad hoc actions and a profusion of goals. The clinicians in British hospitals have been integrated into the management hierarchy. Their use of cost information in planning and control processes reflects this integration. However, in Brazil, clinicians have been shown to operate more independently and make little use of cost information but the potential signalled for cost information use is seen to be even greater than that of their British counterparts.

Intercultural transfer and artistic innovation:German musicians in Victorian Britain

Throughout the nineteenth century, German classical music production was an aesthetic point of reference for British concert audiences. As a consequence, a sizeable number of German musicians were to be found in Britain as performers, conductors, teachers, musicologists and managers. They acted as agents of intercultural transfer, disseminating performance and organisational practices which had a transformative effect on British musical life. This article moves away from a focus on high-profile visiting artists such as Mendelssohn Bartholdy or Wagner and argues that the extent to which transfer took place can be better assessed by concentrating on the cohort of those artists who remained permanently. Some of these are all but forgotten today, but were household names in Victorian Britain. The case studies have been selected for the range of genres they represent and include Joseph Mainzer (choral singing), Carl Rosa (opera), August Manns, Carl Hallé and Julius Seligmann (orchestral music), and Friedrich Niecks (musicology). On a theoretical level, the concept of ‘intercultural transfer’ is applied in order to determine aspects such as diffusion, adaptation or sustainability of artistic elements within the new cultural context. The approach confirms that ‘national’ cultures do not develop indigenously but always through cross-national interaction. Während des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts war die klassische Musikszene Deutschlands ästhetischer Bezugpunkt für das britische Konzertpublikum. Dies hatte zur Folge, dass vermehrt Deutsche als Musiker, Dirigenten, Lehrer, Musikwissenschaftler und Manager in Großbritannien tätig wurden. Sie fungierten als Vermittler interkulturellen Transfers, indem sie aufführungs- und organisationstechnische Praktiken verbreiteten und damit zu einer Transformation des britischen Musiklebens beitrugen. Vorliegender Artikel konzentriert sich weniger auf bekannte Künstler mit kurzfristigen Engagements (z. B. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Wagner), und argumentiert vielmehr, dass sich das Ausmaß des Transfers besser über solche Musiker feststellen lässt, die sich längerfristig ansiedelten. Einige davon waren allgemein bekannte Persönlichkeiten im Königreich, sind heute aber vergessen. Die Auswahl der Fallstudien gibt einen Überblick über verschiedene Gattungen und beinhaltet Joseph Mainzer (Chorgesang), Carl Rosa (Oper), August Manns, Carl Hallé und Julius Seligmann (Orchestermusik), sowie Friedrich Niecks (Musikwissenschaft). Auf der Theorieebene wird das Konzept des ‘interkulturellen Transfers’ herangezogen, um Aspekte wie Diffusion, Anpassung oder Nachhaltigkeit künstlerischer Elemente im neuen kulturellen Kontext zu beleuchten. Der Ansatz bestätigt, dass sich ‘nationale’ Kulturen nicht indigen entwickeln sondern immer im Austausch mit anderen Kulturen

Great desire for extended life and health amongst the American public

People want to live long, healthy lives. Previous surveys suggest very limited interest in much longer lifespans, but we show that stipulating good health changes responses to favor longer lives by an order of magnitude. Advances in aging research hold out hope for greatly slowed aging with associated good health. Understanding the public's desires correctly is important to avoid misallocation of resources for research.

Life, Social Studies, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Using Classroom-based Multicultural Democratic Education to Challenge Conservative Notions of Civic Education

Bok (2010) argues civic understanding could improve student happiness by improving perceptions of politics and government, but the state of civic education in public schools keeps this from happening. This study argues that this notion of civic education is conservative by exploring Bok’s premises, social studies, and civic education.

From Wovoka to Wounded Knee: deprivation of Sioux traditional life and the massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890

The purpose of this thesis is to explore deprivation experienced by the nineteenth century Sioux who suffered the loss of traditional lands, economic independence, buffalo, tribal customs, and religion. After years of reservation life, starvation, and deprivation at the hands of the U.S. government, white settlers, and reservation agents, the Sioux anxiously sought out a Paiute Indian Messiah named Wovoka whose message of a new Indian world spread rapidly throughout the Dakotas. The use of extensive historical and religious documents, as well as primary sources, will argue that the extent of desperation experienced by the Sioux drove them to accept the Ghost Dance as a substitute for the Sun Dance, the center of their traditional religious complex. With its hope of the resurrection of dead Indians, return of the buffalo, and renewal of the earth, it was immediately adopted leading ultimately to the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 and the passing of Wovoka's religion into history.

Enhanced microbial activity in carbon-rich pillow lavas, Ordovician, Great Britain and Ireland

Date of acceptance: 09/07/2015