Popular critiques of consultancy and a politics of management learning?

In this short article, I argue that popular business discourse on the role of management consultancy in the promotion and translation of management ideas is often critical, informed by more or less implicit ethical and political concerns with employee security, equity, openness and the transparency and legitimacy of responsibility. These concerns are, in part, ‘sayable’ because their object is seen as a scapegoat for management. Nevertheless, combined with the popular form of their expression, they can support and legitimize critical studies of management learning, a discipline which otherwise has become overly concerned with processual and situational phenomena at the expense of broader political dynamics and of the content and consequences of management and management knowledg

Accelerator Design for the CHESS-U Upgrade

During the summer and fall of 2018 the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) is undergoing an upgrade to increase high-energy flux for x-ray users. The upgrade requires replacing one-sixth of the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR), inverting the polarity of half of the CHESS beam lines, and switching to single-beam on-axis operation. The new sextant is comprised of six double-bend achromats (DBAs) with combined-function dipole-quadrupoles. Although the DBA design is widely utilized and well understood, the constraints for the CESR modifications make the CHESS-U lattice unique. This paper describes the design objectives, constraints, and implementation for the CESR accelerator upgrade for CHESS-U

Online intervention, ‘MePlusMe’, supporting mood, wellbeing, study skills, and everyday functioning in students in higher education: a protocol for a feasibility study

Background: Psychological and study skill difficulties faced by students in higher education can lead to poor academic performance, sub-optimal mental health, reduced study satisfaction, and drop out from study. At the same time, higher education institutions’ support services are costly, oversubscribed, and struggle to meet demand whilst facing budget reductions. The purpose of the proposed study is to evaluate the acceptability of a new online intervention, MePlusMe, aimed at students in higher education facing mild to moderate psychological and/or study skill difficulties. The study will also assess the feasibility of proposed recruitment and outcome assessment protocols for a future trial of effectiveness. The system supports self-management strategies alongside ongoing monitoring facilitated by a messaging service, as well as featuring a built-in community of student users. It is based on current clinical guidelines for the management of common mental health problems, together with best practice from the educational field. Methods/design: Two hundred and forty two students will be recruited to a within-subjects, repeated measures study conducted over 8 weeks. Self-report measures of depression and anxiety symptoms, mental wellbeing, academic self-efficacy, and everyday functioning will be collected at baseline, and then at 2, 4, and 8 weeks. During this period, students will have access to the intervention system. UK higher education institutions Bournemouth University and University of Warwick will participate in the study. Data on student satisfaction and engagement will also be collected. Study findings will help to determine the most appropriate primary outcome and the required sample size for a future trial. Discussion: This study will evaluate the acceptability of an online intervention system for students facing psychological and/or study skill difficulties and will test recruitment procedures and outcome measures for a future trial of effectiveness. The system is designed to be implemented as a stand-alone service or a service complementary to student support services, which is accessible to the majority of students and effective in improving student experience at higher education institutions

Solid state and sub-cooled liquid vapour pressures of substituted dicarboxylic acids using Knudsen Effusion Mass Spectrometry (KEMS) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry

Solid state vapour pressures of a selection of atmospherically important substituted dicarboxylic acids have been measured using Knudsen Effusion Mass Spectrometry (KEMS) over a range of 20 K (298–318 K). Enthalpies of fusion and melting points obtained using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) were used to obtain sub-cooled liquid vapour pressures. They have been compared to estimation methods used on the E-AIM website. These methods are shown to poorly represent – OH groups in combination with COOH groups. Partitioning calculations have been performed to illustrate the impact of the different estimation methods on organic aerosol mass compared to the use of experimental data

From fly-by-wire to drive-by-wire: Safety implications of automation in vehicles

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the current trend in automobile engineering toward automation of many of the functions previously performed by the driver. Working on the assumption that automation in aviation represents the basic model for driver automation, the costs and benefits of automation in aviation are explored as a means of establishing where automation of drivers' tasks are likely to yield benefits. It is concluded that there are areas where automation can provide benefits to the driver, but there are other areas where this is unlikely to be the case. Automation per se does not guarantee success, and therefore it becomes vital to involve Human Factors into design to identify where automation of driver functions can be allocated with a beneficial outcome for driving performance

Automated algorithm for CBCT-based dose calculations of prostate radiotherapy with bilateral hip prostheses

ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE:Cone beam CT (CBCT) images contain more scatter than a conventional CT image and therefore provide inaccurate Hounsfield units (HUs). Consequently, CBCT images cannot be used directly for radiotherapy dose calculation. The aim of this study is to enable dose calculations to be performed with the use of CBCT images taken during radiotherapy and evaluate the necessity of replanning.METHODS:A patient with prostate cancer with bilateral metallic prosthetic hip replacements was imaged using both CT and CBCT. The multilevel threshold (MLT) algorithm was used to categorize pixel values in the CBCT images into segments of homogeneous HU. The variation in HU with position in the CBCT images was taken into consideration. This segmentation method relies on the operator dividing the CBCT data into a set of volumes where the variation in the relationship between pixel values and HUs is small. An automated MLT algorithm was developed to reduce the operator time associated with the process. An intensity-modulated radiation therapy plan was generated from CT images of the patient. The plan was then copied to the segmented CBCT (sCBCT) data sets with identical settings, and the doses were recalculated and compared.RESULTS:Gamma evaluation showed that the percentage of points in the rectum with γ < 1 (3%/3 mm) were 98.7% and 97.7% in the sCBCT using MLT and the automated MLT algorithms, respectively. Compared with the planning CT (pCT) plan, the MLT algorithm showed −0.46% dose difference with 8 h operator time while the automated MLT algorithm showed −1.3%, which are both considered to be clinically acceptable, when using collapsed cone algorithm.CONCLUSION:The segmentation of CBCT images using the method in this study can be used for dose calculation. For a patient with prostate cancer with bilateral hip prostheses and the associated issues with CT imaging, the MLT algorithms achieved a sufficient dose calculation accuracy that is clinically acceptable. The automated MLT algorithm reduced the operator time associated with implementing the MLT algorithm to achieve clinically acceptable accuracy. This saved time makes the automated MLT algorithm superior and easier to implement in the clinical setting.ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE:The MLT algorithm has been extended to the complex example of a patient with bilateral hip prostheses, which with the introduction of automation is feasible for use in adaptive radiotherapy, as an alternative to obtaining a new pCT and reoutlining the structures

The distinctiveness of employment relations within multinationals: political games and social compromises within multinationals’ subsidiaries in Germany and Belgium

This work makes a theoretical contribution to our understanding of the strategic mechanisms that enable subsidiary management and union agency to exploit ambiguities in the subnational competitive context impacting labour flexibility-security concerns. In so doing, the article contributes to the distinctiveness of employment relations through scrutiny of the internal regime competition that fosters political games in MNCs. Studying the dynamics, we identify the set of structuring conditions governing political games, and explain why some workplace regimes generate social compromises whilst others do not. We reveal a set of strategic conditions (i.e. technology, embeddedness and MNC control) upon which compromise is built in six German and Belgian subsidiaries of four MNCs. Our analysis suggests that subsidiary control modes through expatriates and local embeddedness act as key mechanisms through which the effects of wider strategic drivers influence the form of social compromise

Preparing Teachers for Rural Appointments

Rural schools face difficulties recruiting or retaining qualified teachers. Prospective teachers need help better understanding the nature of rural teaching. Despite many pluses, collegial isolation, low salaries, multiple grade or subject teaching assignments, and lack of familiarity with rural schools and communities are challenges to new teachers in rural schools. This study examined nine mid-continent institutions for five components identified as preparing and retaining teachers to teach in rural schools. From the 120 teacher preparation institutions in the mid-continent, 17 confirmed the existence of a rural program emphasis. Nine of the 17 had three or more rural programs. Three of the nine programs offered options for teachers to receive multiple certifications. As to access, seven of the nine programs offered online courses and four offered courses at more accessible community college campuses. Four of the nine recruited students from rural communities and two programs actively sought student teaching placements in rural schools

The writing on the wall: the concealed communities of the East Yorkshire horselads

This paper examines the graffiti found within late nineteenth and early-twentieth century farm buildings in the Wolds of East Yorkshire. It suggests that the graffiti were created by a group of young men at the bottom of the social hierarchy - the horselads – and was one of the ways in which they constructed a distinctive sense of communal identity, at a particular stage in their lives. Whilst it tells us much about changing agricultural regimes and social structures, it also informs us about experiences and attitudes often hidden from official histories and biographies. In this way, the graffiti are argued to inform our understanding, not only of a concealed community, but also about their hidden histor