Content and drivers of performance management in agency-type organizations of the hungarian public administration

The improving performance of public administration and the reform of public financing system have been on agenda in Hungary for many years, in accordance with the international trends. However, governments have not expected and supported creating of a performance-oriented public administration in a comprehensive and explicit way. Nevertheless, there are bottom-up initiatives at organizational level, which target performance-oriented organizational function. The research focuses on organizations of central public administration where the successful application of performance management methods is most likely based on the international literature. These are the so called agency-type organizations, which are in Hungary called autonomous state-administration organizations independent of the Government (e.g. Hungarian Competition Authority), government bureaus (e.g. Hungarian Central Statistical Office), and central offices subordinated to the government (either the cabinet or a ministry) (e.g. Hungarian Meteorological Service). The studied agencies are legally independent organizations with managerial autonomy based on public law. The purpose of this study is to get an overview on organizational level performance management tools applied by Hungarian agencies, and to reveal the reasons and drivers of the application of these tools. The empirical research is based on a mixed methods approach which combines both quantitative methods and qualitative procedures. The first – quantitative – phase of the author’s research was content analysis of homepages of the studied organizations. As a results she got information about all agencies and their practice related to some performance management tools. The second – qualitative – phase was based on semi-structured face-to-face interviews with some senior managers of agencies. The author selected the interviewees based on the results of the first phase, the relatively strong performance orientation was an important selection criteria.

Adaptation in knowledge-based teams: An examination of team composition, leader sensegiving, and cognitive, behavioral, and motivational mechanisms

Organizations are increasingly relying on teams to do the work that has traditionally been done by individuals. At the same time, the environments in which these organizations and teams operate have been becoming progressively more complex and uncertain. These trends raise important questions about the factors that enable teams to adapt. In response to these questions, the current study sought to identify the cognitive, behavioral, and motivational processes and emergent states that promote a team's adaptation to unforeseen changes and novel events, and the team compositional characteristics and leadership processes that enabled these processes and emergent states. Two hundred twenty two undergraduate students from a large Southeastern University composed 74 3-person teams, and participated in a computerized decision-making simulation where each team formed the governing body (i.e., Mayor's cabinet) for two separate simulated cities, and made strategic decisions about city operations. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three roles, distributing expertise and creating mutual interdependence. External team leader sensegiving was manipulated through video recorded communications from an external team leader. Results indicate that team cognitive ability, achievement striving, and psychological collectivism, as well as external team leader sensegiving, were all related to the similarity and quality of team members' strategy-focused mental models (cognitive emergent states), and to the amount of information sharing among members (behavioral process). In turn, teams with more similar and higher quality mental models, and who shared greater levels of information, were found to have a greater ability to react and adapt to environmental changes, and to have greater levels of decision-making effectiveness. Results indicate a pattern of relationships consistent with hypotheses, and have important implications for organizations and knowledge-based teams charged with management responsibilities. Organizations should staff teams with the compositional characteristics that enable the development of similar and high quality mental models, and that promote information sharing among teammates. Similarly, organizations which train and develop leaders to engage in sensegiving behaviors enable team adaptability and promote enhanced decision-making effectiveness when faced with unforeseen changes and novel situations.

Extending Holding Time for Hot Foods

Humidifying the air inside a hot holding cabinet can greatly extend the holding time for hot foods by retarding the quality degradation of the food due to moisture loss. Not all cabinets are equally effective in maintaining temperature and humidity. A rudimentary understanding of how heat and moisture are transferred to the food will help operators select the cabinet that best meets operation’s needs. The authors address what works and why.

Political strategy, leadership, and policy entrepreneurship in Japanese defense policy and politics: A comparison of three prime ministerships

Since the end of the Cold War, Japan's defense policy and politics has gone through significant changes. Throughout the post cold war period, US-Japan alliance managers, politicians with differing visions and preferences, scholars, think tanks, and the actions of foreign governments have all played significant roles in influencing these changes. Along with these actors, the Japanese prime minister has played an important, if sometimes subtle, role in the realm of defense policy and politics. Japanese prime ministers, though significantly weaker than many heads of state, nevertheless play an important role in policy by empowering different actors (bureaucratic actors, independent commissions, or civil actors), through personal diplomacy, through agenda-setting, and through symbolic acts of state. The power of the prime minister to influence policy processes, however, has frequently varied by prime minister. My dissertation investigates how different political strategies and entrepreneurial insights by the prime minister have influenced defense policy and politics since the end of the Cold War. In addition, it seeks to explain how the quality of political strategy and entrepreneurial insight employed by different prime ministers was important in the success of different approaches to defense. My dissertation employs a comparative case study approach to examine how different prime ministerial strategies have mattered in the realm of Japanese defense policy and politics. Three prime ministers have been chosen: Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro (1996-1998); Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro (2001-2006); and Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio (2009-2010). These prime ministers have been chosen to provide maximum contrast on issues of policy preference, cabinet management, choice of partners, and overall strategy. As my dissertation finds, the quality of political strategy has been an important aspect of Japan's defense transformation. Successful strategies have frequently used the knowledge and accumulated personal networks of bureaucrats, supplemented bureaucratic initiatives with top-down personal diplomacy, and used a revitalized US-Japan strategic relationship as a political resource for a stronger prime ministership. Though alternative approaches, such as those that have looked to displace the influence of bureaucrats and the US in defense policy, have been less successful, this dissertation also finds theoretical evidence that alternatives may exist.

Israel, You Rascals

Mark Steel started doing stand-up in 1982 in England, around the circuit of bizarre gigs, going on after jugglers and escapologists and people that banged nails into their ear. Then came the Comedy Store and Jongleurs and getting bottled off at The Tunnel, and then a regular slot on Radio 4′s Loose Ends, where he met Joseph Heller, Christopher Lee and Gary Glitter. He did 4 series of ‘The Mark Steel Solution’, one for Radio 5 and the others on Radio 4, and a radio series about cricket, which provoked a whole page of fury in the Daily Express. He presented three series of a sports programme called ‘Extra Time’ which he was very proud of, especially as it went out on Tuesday nights on Radio 5 to possibly no listeners whatsoever. Then there was four series of the lectures on Radio 4, a book called ‘It’s Not a Runner Bean’, another one called ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’, and 3 television series of the lectures on BBC 4 and BBC 2. He has done weekly columns in Socialist Worker, the Guardian and the Independent. He has written a book called ‘Vive le Revolution’, and has been on various panel shows like Have I Got News For You and QI, and on Room 101, and on Question Time he says that he “got very confused when I insulted a member of the Tory shadow cabinet, and afterwards he said I was splendid and invited me for a drink.” And he’s spoken at lots of demonstrations and union meetings and protests, and appeared at quite a few benefits. This essay originally appeared on his website: http://marksteelinfo.com/blog/.

La respuesta liberal de Edmund Burke a la crisis de legitimidad política del siglo XVIII

Edmund Burke is both the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the last three hundred years. We could not agree more with this assertion of Jesse Norman. Very few political-statesmen have attainted the enormous repercussion both in politics and in history that Burke had deployed over the last centuries. Nevertheless, Burke remains unfairly unknown for a wider public. And what it is more, the vast majority tend to think of him as a conservative, if not a liberal-conservative. A prior precision has to be made before continuing regarding the term liberal for the sake of accuracy. Burke was a prominent Whig, what in Spanish language we describe as a liberal, in the sense that both Hayek and Milton Friedman uttered, far from the meaning “kidnapped” of the word liberal by the Anglo-Saxon left. The object of this thesis is to investigate the non-solved controversy on Burke`s figure and the liberal answer he provided with to the political crisis of legitimacy of the 18th century. There is an existing shared opinion by the academia that prior to the Reflections on the Revolution of France, his masterpiece, he was an outstanding and prominent Whig. Champion of liberty, justice and good governance, guardian of liberal virtues and the authentic developer of the efficient policy put in place by the Marquis of Rockingham in order to curb the corruption and influence emanating from the court of George the Third and his double cabinet.

El papel de los museos en la sociedad actual: discurso institucional o museo participativo

Desde hace ya varias décadas se ha extendido un lema convertido en habitual año tras año: que los museos necesitan cambios y que, éstos, deben seguir produciéndose en el futuro para que estas instituciones sigan siendo significativas en la sociedad, es decir, para los ciudadanos a quienes representan y sirven. La cuestión de cómo afrontan los cambios es lo que verdaderamente ha dado lugar a reflexiones interesantes en el campo de la museología. No existe un enfoque único para una cuestión tan compleja, ya que está compuesta de múltiples capas que, en muchas ocasiones, son difícilmente acoplables. Sin embargo, en términos generales, podemos apuntar que va a ser en la exposición donde los nuevos planteamientos tendrán su desarrollo.

Os Efeitos da Avaliação Psicológica em Crianças com Dificuldades de Aprendizagem

O presente estudo de caso agregado teve como objetivo primordial avaliar em que medida os recursos terapêuticos utilizados durante o tempo de avaliação psicodiagnóstica (psicométrica e projetiva) das crianças encaminhadas para o serviço de psicologia escolar, tem impacto positivo na criança em processo de avaliação, no duplo plano comportamental e cognitivo. O protocolo da investigação foi composto por: desenho de família, WISC-III e CAT, com recurso a algumas sessões de ludoterapia. Os meios utilizados no processo de avaliação permitiram a superação de algumas dificuldades apresentadas pelas crianças, tendo sido, muito particularmente, identificados os contributos que a psicanálise e a psicologia psicodinâmica podem oferecer à psicopedagogia. / The main objective of this aggregated case study was the assessment of the impact of psycho-diagnostic evaluation (psychometric and projective testing) on the improvement of the school-aged children oriented to the cabinet of psychology of their school. The research protocol included: family picture test, WISC -III and CAT, plus some play therapy sessions. Some of the children overcame part of the learning and behavioral difficulties after the evaluation period. Such a result proves, most particularly, the contributions of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychology to psycho-pedagogy.

Developmental TVET rhetoric in-action: the White Paper for post-school education and training in South Africa

This paper explores the extent to which latest developments in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training System in South Africa respond to key principles espoused for a developmental, democratic and inclusionary ideal. The White Paper for post school education and training approved by Cabinet in November, 2013 is referred to by the Minister as the “definitive statement of the governments vision for the post school system” and as such represents a crucial strategy document intended to chart the TVET direction to 2030. Using key theoretical constructs from development theory, this paper provides an assessment of the TVET strategy contained is the paper and explores the extent to which it does respond to the agenda defined by the promise. It is argued that the challenges outlined are not yet able to provide the blueprint for a TVET transformative vision. It is concluded that while the development rhetoric contained in the paper is plausible, the creative tinkering of the system is unlikely to lead to the radical revisioning necessary for a truly transformative TVET system. The underlying assumptions regarding purpose, impact and outcome will need to be carefully reconsidered if the system is to be responsive to the promises of the democratic developmental ideal to which the government is committed. (DIPF/Orig.)

A review of one-step fluorescent cyanoacrylate techniques

A review of recent research in the use of one-step fluorescent cyanoacrylate techniques is presented. Advantages and disadvantages of such techniques in comparison to two-step processes are discussed. Further studies and new experimental data are presented to aid this review: three one-step cyanoacrylate products (Lumicyano, PolyCyano UV and PECA Multiband) containing a fluorescent dye were tested to evaluate their effectiveness in developing latent fingermarks on polyethylene bags by means of a pseudo operational trial. The results were compared to the traditional two-step process of cyanoacrylate fuming followed by staining with ethanol-based basic yellow 40 (BY40). The study was conducted using sequential treatments of an initial fuming cycle, a second cycle and finally BY40 staining. LumicyanoTM and PolyCyano UV performed similarly before BY40 staining, with both providing good contrast and visibility under fluorescence. PECA Multiband, however, did not develop as many fingermarks and proved to be problematic for the fuming cabinet. Subsequent BY40 staining of fingermarks developed by all three one-step processes enabled the visualisation of new fingermarks.

Wondrous transformations: rereading and rewriting wonder in contemporary anglophone and francophone fairy tales

This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.

Modelização de sistemas de gestão de energia em ambiente

Este trabalho propõe uma metodologia de tradução para igualar o programa de controle de PLC no ambiente Matlab/Simulink. A lista traduz automaticamente o programa de controlo de PLC para a linguagem. de software Matlab/Simulink. O programa do PlC é traduzido para uma função bloco do Matlab, dentro do ambiente Matlab/Simulink, que irá controlar o modelo do processo industrial, desde que a simulação seja executada. As entradas e saídas da lista de tradução do PLC depende do tipo de autómato que é escolhido. A lista de tradução será compatível com um ficheiro Matlab/Simulink que corresponde tradução de programa de controle de PLC. ABSTRACT: This work proposes a translation methodology to equa1 the program of control of PLC in the environment Matlab/Simulink. The list translates automatically the program of control of PLC for the language of software Matlab/Simulink. The program of the PlC is translated for a function block of the Matlab, inside the environment Matlab/Simulink, which will be going to control the model of the industrial process, since the simulation is executed. The entries and exits of the translation list of the PLC it depends on the type of automaton that is chosen. The translation list will be compatible with a filing cabinet Matlab/Simulink that corresponds translation of program of control of PLC.