18,225 research outputs found
Taylorism, targets, technology and teams - compatible concepts? Evidence from a US call centre
Taylorism, targets and technology form a potent mix in call
centres where groups of individuals are asked to perform as
āteamsā. In this paper we explore how ātaskā oriented
concepts interact with the āinterpersonal relationshipā realm in an environment where group life dominates the notional foundation of a call centreās organisational structure.
Tuckmanās four stage model of sequential group development
serves as the theoretical lens through which the role āteamsā play in the working environment of a large call centre is examined.Our analysis of structured interviews conducted in an outbound, financial services call centre in the southern United States reveals the mechanisms by which agents have interpreted their āteam charterā to focus on individual achievement of increased remuneration levels. The interplay between these variables indicate that reward mechanisms associated with simple Taylorist targets, imposed on the entry level call centre agents, mitigate against meaningful group development. The advancement through promotion based on individual performance to more challenging, less target based
work, is in sharp contrast to their initial training period where āteam buildingā is an essential ingredient of skills acquisition
A summary of terminology used in tephra-related studies
The word ātephraā, derived from a Greek word for ash, is a collective term for all the unconsolidated, primary pyroclastic products of a volcanic eruption. We summarise here the meanings and applicability of this and related terms, including tephrostratigraphy, tephrochronology, tephrochronometry, tephrology, and cryptotephra. These and other tephra-based terms, some of which are erroneous or unnecessary, have been used in a wide range of stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental disciplines and in archaeology
Hawks\u27 Herald -- February 5, 2015
Strategy for Tomorro
SenseCam image localisation using hierarchical SURF trees
The SenseCam is a wearable camera that automatically takes photos of the wearer's activities, generating thousands of images per day.
Automatically organising these images for efficient search and retrieval is a challenging task, but can be simplified by providing
semantic information with each photo, such as the wearer's location during capture time. We propose a method for automatically determining the wearer's location using an annotated image database, described using SURF interest point descriptors. We show that SURF out-performs SIFT in matching SenseCam images and that matching can be done efficiently using hierarchical trees of SURF descriptors. Additionally, by re-ranking the top images using bi-directional SURF matches, location matching performance is improved further
On Vague Computers
Vagueness is something everyone is familiar with. In fact, most people think
that vagueness is closely related to language and exists only there. However,
vagueness is a property of the physical world. Quantum computers harness
superposition and entanglement to perform their computational tasks. Both
superposition and entanglement are vague processes. Thus quantum computers,
which process exact data without "exploiting" vagueness, are actually vague
computers
The Future of Health Behavior Research
This commentary discusses the author\u27s views of the future of health behavior research
Nineteenth Century Review of Mental Health Care for African Americans: A Legacy of Service and Policy Barriers
The need to focus on service and policy barriers to mental health service delivery for African Americans remains critical. The purpose of this article is to review nineteenth century care as a method for understanding contemporary service and policy barriers. A case study strategy is used to compare the efforts of Pennsylvania and South Carolina using primary and secondary sources to document these developments through a political economy perspective. These findings suggest that the prevailing social, political and economic realities have created mental health disparities along racial lines. Existing barriers are likely rooted in this same reality
The ABCs of Alphabets and Scripts in Academic Library Research
This poster guides library users seeking non-English materials through optimized paths toward their materials through 4 cases based on their answers to two questions: 1) Do you know the exact title you need? 2) Do you speak the language of the materials you need? It provides guidance on transliteration, translation, and resources for conducting non-English research. The 4 cases represent an attempt at a contextually aware approach to meeting users' needs, toward a possible search experience that would be guided by automated tools
Introduction to the new usability
This paper introduces the motivation for and concept of the "new usability" and positions it against existing approaches to usability. It is argued that the contexts of emerging products and systems mean that traditional approaches to usability engineering and evaluation are likely to prove inappropriate to the needs of "digital consumers." The paper briefly reviews the contributions to this special issue in terms of their relation to the idea of the "new usability" and their individual approaches to dealing with contemporary usability issues. This helps provide a background to the "new usability" research agenda, and the paper ends by posing what are argued to be the central challenges facing the area and those which lie at the heart of the proposed research agenda
- ā¦