Towards a framework to study influence and accounting use.

The autonomous regions of Spain have responsibility for healthcare. The Galician Health Service aims to achieve a higher level of health for Galicians with an appropriate primary healthcare system. The law requires healthcare to be promoted within a system of participative management directed by an upper level of management. The healthcare system is changing, and the upper level managers are introducing new systems to improve the provision and administration of care. These changes will include the provision of accounting data in the normal course of managing. This paper is before a study of the changes. The paper provides the background to constructing a Framework and then constructs a Framework for our empirical work. It uses the constructs of information and influence with markers of the information areas and styles of influence in the form of an Information–Influence Matrix (Purdy, 1993b). It also uses personal construction (Kelly, 1955) to help create a dynamic approach to change and the use of accounting information. It finally provides a framework of our anticipations of what might happen to a Health Centre Manager and an Upper Manager.

Information Systems Management in Perspective of Business Benefits

This paper describes possible way of building an effective IT strategy in perspective of long-term business benefits in order to size of the firm, branch and the type of business. Firstly the general scope of this way is given and the second part the case connected with building an appropriate IT strategy for economical High School is described as an example.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej nauk

Processes, Roles and Their Interactions

Taking an interaction network oriented perspective in informatics raises the challenge to describe deterministic finite systems which take part in networks of nondeterministic interactions. The traditional approach to describe processes as stepwise executable activities which are not based on the ordinarily nondeterministic interaction shows strong centralization tendencies. As suggested in this article, viewing processes and their interactions as complementary can circumvent these centralization tendencies. The description of both, processes and their interactions is based on the same building blocks, namely finite input output automata (or transducers). Processes are viewed as finite systems that take part in multiple, ordinarily nondeterministic interactions. The interactions between processes are described as protocols. The effects of communication between processes as well as the necessary coordination of different interactions within a processes are both based on the restriction of the transition relation of product automata. The channel based outer coupling represents the causal relation between the output and the input of different systems. The coordination condition based inner coupling represents the causal relation between the input and output of a single system. All steps are illustrated with the example of a network of resource administration processes which is supposed to provide requesting user processes exclusive access to a single resource.Comment: In Proceedings IWIGP 2012, arXiv:1202.422

An Arakawa and Gins experimental teaching space : a feasibility study

This essay discusses the benefits of Arakawa and Gins procedural architecture for the development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning environments. the discussion of how the body is engaged in knoelwdge acquisition leads to a feasibility study undertaken at an Australian University to determine how an experimental, sensory and perceptually-based learning space might be built given the T&L priorties and the fiscal climate in which universitioes curently operat

Secrecy in Educational Practices: Enacting Nested Black Boxes in Cheating and Deception Detection Systems

This paper covers secrecy from the vantage point of recent technological initiatives designed to detect cheating and deception in educational contexts as well as to monitor off-campus social media speech code violations. Many of these systems are developed and implemented by third-party corporate entities who claim practices to be proprietary and secret. The outsourcers involved in these efforts have provided one level of secrecy and educational administrators involved yet another level, thus constructing nested black boxes. Also discussed in this paper is the “paranoid style” of administration, often supported by the surveillance and construction of rosters of potential non-conformists, such as alleged cheaters and speech code violators. The educational technologies described in this article are increasingly applied to workplace practices, with young people being trained in what is deemed acceptable conduct. Secrecy can serve to alter the character of relationships within the educational institutions involved as well as inside the workplaces in which the approaches are increasingly being integrated

Evaluation of power generation operations in response to changes in surface water reservoir storage

We used a customized, river basin-based model of surface water rights to evaluate the response of power plants to drought via simulated changes in reservoir storage. Our methodology models surface water rights in 11 river basins in Texas using five cases: (1) storage decrease of existing capacity of 10%, (2) storage decrease of 50%, (3) complete elimination of storage, (4) storage increase of 10% (all at existing locations), and (5) construction of new reservoirs (at new locations) with a total increase in baseline reservoir capacity for power plant cooling of 9%. Using the Brazos River basin as a sample, we evaluated power generation operations in terms of reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability. As simulated water storage decreases, reliability generally decreases and resiliency and vulnerability remain relatively constant. All three metrics remain relatively constant with increasing reservoir storage, with the exception of one power plant. As reservoir storage changes at power plants, other water users in the basin are also affected. In general, decreasing water storage is beneficial to other water users in the basin, and increasing storage is detrimental for many other users. Our analysis reveals basin-wide and individual power plant-level impacts of changing reservoir storage, demonstrating a methodology for evaluation of the sustainability and feasibility of constructing new reservoir storage as a water and energy management approach.Mechanical Engineerin

Three and Four Region Multi-sector Linear Modelling Using UK Data : Some Preliminary Results

Scotland and Wales have relatively up-to-date, independently generated, IO tables. These can be separated out from a UK national IO table to construct an inter-regional table. We therefore undertake the detailed analysis at this three-region (Scotland, Wales and the Rest of the UK (RUK)) level, where the Rest of the UK is England and Northern Ireland. However, we also construct a more rudimentary four-region (Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland) set of IO and SAM accounts by constructing a separate Northern Ireland accounts. The inter-regional IO and SAM models are produced for the year 1999. This was determined by the availability of consistent data. In Section II we describe the construction of a three-region Input-Output model for the United Kingdom, which includes the regions of Scotland, Wales and the Rest of the UK (RUK). In Section III we extend the three-region model to construct an inter-regional Social Accounting Matrix. Section IV reports some results using the three-region IO and SAM models. In Section V, we generate a four-region IO and SAM model for the UK, which disaggregates Northern Ireland from the Rest of the UK, and provide some results using the four-region IO and SAM models. Section VI offers our conclusions

Constructing a concept of number

Numbers are concepts whose content, structure, and organization are influenced by the material forms used to represent and manipulate them. Indeed, as argued here, it is the inclusion of multiple forms (distributed objects, fingers, single- and two-dimensional forms like pebbles and abaci, and written notations) that is the mechanism of numerical elaboration. Further, variety in employed forms explains at least part of the synchronic and diachronic variability that exists between and within cultural number systems. Material forms also impart characteristics like linearity that may persist in the form of knowledge and behaviors, ultimately yielding numerical concepts that are irreducible to and functionally independent of any particular form. Material devices used to represent and manipulate numbers also interact with language in ways that reinforce or contrast different aspects of numerical cognition. Not only does this interaction potentially explain some of the unique aspects of numerical language, it suggests that the two are complementary but ultimately distinct means of accessing numerical intuitions and insights. The potential inclusion of materiality in contemporary research in numerical cognition is advocated, both for its explanatory power, as well as its influence on psychological, behavioral, and linguistic aspects of numerical cognition