Constructing an Effective Annual Departmental Report

Departmental strategic needs are wide-ranging placing increased demands on chairs to broaden their roles. To meet growing strategic demands, chairs must systematize the gathering of pertinent analytics and information. This workshop identifies important items to include in annual departmental reviews and how to leverage data towards positive departmental change

Mapping the Future, Tennessee Agriculture 2014 Departmental Report & Statistical Summary

https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/govpubs-tn-department-agriculture-annual-report/1004/thumbnail.jp

Sharing in the Success! Tennessee Agriculture 2013 Departmental Report & Statistical Summary

https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/govpubs-tn-department-agriculture-annual-report/1005/thumbnail.jp

Italy seen through British eyes: a European middle power?

This article analyses the British perceptions of contemporary Italy and Italian politics. Through the use of a number of sources (parliamentary debates, governmental documents, newspaper articles and interviews) it argues that Italy is not perceived, within Great Britain, as a great power within the European system nor it is viewed as a peripheral actor. Rather, it suggests that Italy seems to have finally found in the post-Cold War scenario its proper role–a European middle power, with important responsibilities within a regional sub-system. A frequent request–and expectation–coming from British politics and society is that Italy should take on more international responsibilities, even in the sphere of defence–as the different readings of Italy's role and leadership in Afghanistan and Lebanon reveal. However, Italy's ability to play this role is believed to be hampered by several factors: its uncertain political situation, its unwillingness to engage in military operations, its reluctance to respect international commitments and its structural economic problems. As a result, further possibilities of cooperation with other international partners as well as its potential for autonomous action on the international stage are, in several cases, precluded. Moreover, if the relations between Italy and the UK are usually seen in a positive way, and Italy is viewed as a reliable partner, the nature of the cooperation between the two countries is often considered to be fragile and based on short-term common interests and strategies

Analysis of Factors Influencing Gyroplane Longitudinal Stick Position and Gradient. Departmental report 0005

Stick position and stick gradient as functions of airspeed, can be important indicators of aircraft handling qualities. Gradient is a measure of the stability derivative Mu, which has an important role to play in determining the period of phugoid-type oscillations. Since BCAR Section T dynamic stability criteria are predicated on oscillation characteristics, stick position and gradient may be a significant indicator or check of compliance. Stick position assumes increased importance for the gyroplane because it is one of the few parameters that can be readily measured without sophisticated or dedicated instrumentation

Don’t throw rocks from the side-lines: A sociomaterial exploration of organizational blogs as boundary objects

Purpose Social media such as blogs are being widely used in organizations in order to undertake internal communication and share knowledge, rendering them important boundary objects. A root metaphor of the boundary object domain is the notion of relatively static and inert objects spanning similarly static boundaries. A strong sociomaterial perspective allows the immisciblity of object and boundary to be challenged, since a key tenet of this perspective is the ongoing and mutually-constituted performance of the material and social. Design/methodology/approach The aim of our research is to draw upon sociomateriality to explore the operation of social media platforms as intra-organizational boundary objects. Given the novel perspective of this study and its social constructivist ontology, we adopt an exploratory, interpretivist research design. This is operationalized as a case study of the use of an organizational blog by a major UK government department over an extended period. A novel aspect of the study is our use of data released under a Freedom of Information request. Findings We present three exemplar instances of how the blog and organizational boundaries were performed in the situated practice of the case study organization. We draw on literature on boundary objects, blogs and sociomateriality in order to provide a theoretical explication of the mutually-constituted performance of the blog and organizational boundaries. We also invoke the notion of ‘extended chains of intra-action’ to theorise changes in the wider organization. Originality/value Adoption of a sociomaterial lens provides a highly novel perspective of boundary objects and organizational boundaries. The study highlights the indeterminate and dynamic nature of boundary objects and boundaries, with both being in an intra-active state of becoming, challenging conventional conceptions. The study demonstrates that specific material-discursive practices arising from the situated practice of the blog at the respective boundaries were performative, reconfiguring the blog and boundaries and being generative of further changes in the organization

Validation of a Blade-Element Helicopter Model for Large-Amplitude Manoeuvres. Departmental Report 9605

The contemporary approach to helicopter mathematical modelling in simulation for handling qualities applications, is to represent each blade individually. This allows incorporation of effects not possible with a multiblade disc representation of the rotor system. This Paper addresses the validation of such a model, which is uniquely performed for large amplitude manoeuvres, using a recently-developed approach to inverse simulation. The method is reviewed in the context of model validation, and comparisons between simulation and actual data are presented for a Puma helicopter executing sidestep manoeuvres in low-speed flight. The focus for interpreting the results is in the area of wake modelling. It is concluded that further developments are necessary in this area if helicopter flight mechanics models are to be used in simulation of role-related flight