STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Bullish on Business: Engaging Employers in Health Care

Describes how RWJF's Aligning Forces for Quality communities have worked to motivate and mobilize employers as a key change agent to improve healthcare quality. Outlines the importance of coalitions, challenges, and tips for employer engagement

Demonstrating the Value of the Public Library: Economic Valuation and the Advocacy Imperative

Promising developments in the field of library valuation over the last fifteen years are providing new options for demonstrating library value. Metrics-gathering has moved away from counting inputs and outputs toward measuring the value of the public library in monetary terms using increasingly sophisticated quantitative methods formerly reserved for business and industry. While it is premature to draw a firm conclusion as to the impact of economic valuation efforts on the success of library advocacy, the adoption of private sector concepts represents a new window of opportunity for library advocates. This critical review synthesizes the library valuation literature, exploring the various frameworks through which library value is being articulated, and finds that econometrics will be most useful to advocates when: 1) library valuation efforts are united with advocacy plans; 2) library services are linked to the achievement of public policy goals; and 3) public libraries are able to connect to a wider funding base

EDI - XML Standards and Technologies in the Agri-Food Industry

Due to globalisation, the new technological developments and the complexity of food supply processes, the European food sector is increasingly becoming more complex. The consumers’ trust in food, triggered and affected by a number of food crises, is low. Today, consumers increasingly expect safe and high quality food and demand information about the origin of their food. Also, the economic health of the food industry can be greatly affected by food crises; therefore, efficient and effective mechanisms are required to assist the food industry in tracking and tracing products along the food chain. In this paper, we discuss the criteria for an efficient and effective traceability system from an IT perspective (mainly data exchange) and we identify key requirements for ICT enabled traceability

The strategic integration of agile and lean supply

Lean supply is closely associated with enabling flow and the elimination of wasteful variation within the supply chain. However, lean operations depend on level scheduling and the growing need to accommodate variety and demand uncertainty has resulted in the emergence of the concept of agility. This paper explores the role of inventory and capacity in accommodating such variation and identifies how TRIZ separation principles and TOC tools may be combined in the integrated development of responsive and efficient supply chains. A detailed apparel industry case study is used to illustrate the application of these concepts and tools

RFID AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN COMMERCE

The paper analysis the possibilities of using, a relative new technology, RFID, in commerce. The main features of this technology, the components of the system, the way the system functions and the stages of the implementing process are also presented. Another part of the paper is devoted to the identification of the advantages of RFID technology and of the hurdels faced by companies in adopting it. The interest for this technology, used as solution for the management of information systems, is in a continuous increase, despite all the problems related to the high cost of the implementation and the wrong legislation, which stops the spread of this technology on a larger scale. The technology is now presented in a relatively small number of companies, but, certainly, it will be adopted, by more and more information systems in the future and it will extend in other activities too.information, radio waves, labels, antenna, reader

Mobile radio alternative systems study, executive summary

Present day mobile communication technologies, systems and equipment are described from background in evaluating the concepts generated in the study. Average propagation ranges are calculated for terrestrial installations in each of seven physiographic areas of the contiguous states to determine the number of installations that would be required for nationwide coverage. Four system concepts are defined and analyzed to determine how well terrestrial systems can fulfill the requirements at acceptable costs

Giving service and provoking rupture : the post-Fordist performer at work

In this article, I examine my practice-as-research pieces What The Money Meant and SERVUS! in terms of how their design and delivery make visible those labour and exchange relations characteristic of late capitalism. After a brief introduction, I take the reader through theoreti-cal debates around service work’s proliferation and existing arguments about its relationship to performance, as well as Chantal Mouffe’s (2013) argument for the ‘agonistic’ potential of aesthetic activity. I move on to argue that SERVUS! provides an example of how the one-to-one performance form can both reveal reification in action and rupture or speak back to its enactment, via techniques including explicit payment, over-enunciation or ‘flourish’ and what I term affective dissonance. I then demonstrate how What The Money Meant extends these techniques by applying them across a specific scenographic design and participatory structure. What The Money Meant invites audience members to communicate with the performer by tipping, which I argue might be seen as a dramaturgical tactic of audience participation. I conclude by arguing that the performance of service, especially that which plays upon the one-to-one structure, can work ‘agonistically’ by both revealing the precarity of late capitalist labour and subverting its delivery

Capitalization, Scale, and Investment: Does Growth Equal Gain?

This study, commissioned by the William Penn Foundation, examines the state of Philadelphia's arts and culture sector.The study is divided into two major sections: trends in the greater Philadelphia ecosystem and assessing investments toward growth