Taylorism, targets and the pursuit of quantity and quality by call centre management

The paper locates the rise of the call centre within the context of the development of Taylorist methods and technological change in office work in general. Managerial utilisation of targets to impose and measure employees' quantitative and qualitative performance is analysed in four case-study organisations. The paper concludes that call centre work reflects a pardigmic re-configuration of customer servicing operations, and that the continuing application of Taylorist methods appears likely

A population model of deep brain stimulation in movement disorders from circuits to cells

Copyright © 2020 Yousif, Bain, Nandi and Borisyuk.For more than 30 years, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been used to target the symptoms of a number of neurological disorders and in particular movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET). It is known that the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra leads to PD, while the exact impact of this on the brain dynamics is not fully understood, the presence of beta-band oscillatory activity is thought to be pathological. The cause of ET, however, remains uncertain, however pathological oscillations in the thalamocortical-cerebellar network have been linked to tremor. Both of these movement disorders are treated with DBS, which entails the surgical implantation of electrodes into a patient's brain. While DBS leads to an improvement in symptoms for many patients, the mechanisms underlying this improvement is not clearly understood, and computational modeling has been used extensively to improve this. Many of the models used to study DBS and its effect on the human brain have mainly utilized single neuron and single axon biophysical models. We have previously shown in separate models however, that the use of population models can shed much light on the mechanisms of the underlying pathological neural activity in PD and ET in turn, and on the mechanisms underlying DBS. Together, this work suggested that the dynamics of the cerebellar-basal ganglia thalamocortical network support oscillations at frequency range relevant to movement disorders. Here, we propose a new combined model of this network and present new results that demonstrate that both Parkinsonian oscillations in the beta band and oscillations in the tremor frequency range arise from the dynamics of such a network. We find regions in the parameter space demonstrating the different dynamics and go on to examine the transition from one oscillatory regime to another as well as the impact of DBS on these different types of pathological activity. This work will allow us to better understand the changes in brain activity induced by DBS, and allow us to optimize this clinical therapy, particularly in terms of target selection and parameter setting.Peer reviewe

Cu-Au type orderings in the staggered quadrupolar region of the fcc Blume Emery Griffiths model

The spin-1 Ising (BEG) model has been simulated using a cellular automaton (CA) algorithm improved from the Creutz cellular automaton (CCA) for a face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice. The ground state diagram ($k$, $d$) of the fcc BEG model has ferromagnetic ($F$), quadrupolar ($Q$) and staggered quadrupolar ($SQ$) ordering regions. The simulations have been made in the staggered quadrupolar region for the parameter values in the intervals $-24\leq d=D/J<0$ and $-3\leq k=K/J\leq 0$ . The phase diagrams on the ($kT_{C}/J$, $d$) and the ($kT_{C}/J$, $k$) planes have been obtained through $k=-3$ and $d=-4$ lines, respectively. The staggered quadrupolar ordering region separates into five ordering regions ($A_{3}B(a)$, $A_{3}B(f)$, $AB$ (type-I), $AB$(type-II) and $AB_{3}(f)$) which have the different stoichiometric Cu-Au type structures.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

The state of agricultural credit in New Zealand

In this paper the subject of agricultural credit has been subdivided into three sections covering background, borrowing, and lending. The background covers some of the changes in the New Zealand economy and government policies which have affected both borrowers and lenders in the agricultural sector, and consequently the amount and form of credit used. The section on borrowing (Section 3) examines the present credit needs of farmers, in particular the apparent trends towards increased equity and greater difficulty in servicing debt. The lending section (Section 4) examines the roles of government and private lending institutions in the field of agricultural credit and changes in the amount and form of credit available

Experiment K-6-09. Morphological and biochemical investigation of microgravity-induced nerve and muscle breakdown. Part 1: Investigation of nerve and muscle breakdown during spaceflight; Part 2: Biochemical analysis of EDL and PLT muscles

The present findings on rat hindlimb muscles suggest that skeletal muscle weakness induced by prolonged spaceflight can result from a combination of muscle fiber atrophy, muscle fiber segmental necrosis, degeneration of motor nerve terminals and destruction of microcirculatory vessels. Damage was confined to the red adductor longus (AL) and soleus muscles. The midbelly region of the AL muscle had more segmental necrosis and edema than the ends. Macrophages and neutrophils were the major mononucleated cells infiltrating and phagocytosing the cellular debris. Toluidine blue-positive mast cells were significantly decreased in Flight AL muscles compared to controls; this indicated that degranulation of mast cells contributed to tissue edema. Increased ubiquitination of disrupted myofibrils may have promoted myofilament degradation. Overall, mitochondria content and SDH activity were normal, except for a decrease in the subsarcolemmal region. The myofibrillar ATPase activity shifted toward the fast type in the Flight AL muscles. Some of the pathological changes may have occurred or been exacerbated during the 2 day postflight period of readaptation to terrestrial gravity. While simple atrophy should be reversible by exercise, restoration of pathological changes depends upon complex processes of regeneration by stem cells. Initial signs of muscle and nerve fiber regeneration were detected. Even though regeneration proceeds on Earth, the space environment may inhibit repair and cause progressive irreversible deterioration during long term missions. Muscles obtained from Flight rats sacrificed immediately (within a few hours) after landing are needed to distinguish inflight changes from postflight readaptation

A review of agricultural credit in New Zealand

The following discussion of the agricultural credit market encompasses agriculture in its wider sense. Because most of the available information and data on agricultural credit is concerned with traditional forms of pastoral farming (sheep, beef and dairy) the discussion relates primarily to those sectors. However, the growing importance of other sectors such as horticulture, grain cropping and deer farming is recognised and where possible their credit situation is also considered. The purpose of the paper is to update previous research by the Agricultural Economics Research Unit into the financing of the agriculture industry. In the past the agricultural credit situation has been relatively stable. Because of its large contribution to exports, agriculture (pastoral agriculture in particular) received considerable support from Government in the form of policies aimed at maintaining a steady flow of investment. Credit assistance was one of the cornerstones of these policies. In 1982 the Government began to change its stance. In the Budget of that year interest payments and certain development ceased to be tax deductible where the farm property was sold within 10 years of purchase. Although this steadied inflation in land prices, long term investors particularly pastoral farm investors still enjoyed considerable advantages over investors wishing to borrow capital for diversification into or expansion of enterprises which were capable of better returns on investment. It was not until late 1984 that a wide range of policies were introduced to remove these advantages and promote greater equity between enterprises and industries requiring capital for restructuring or expansion. As a result some of the conclusions reached in Discussion Papers on agricultural and horticultural credit published by the Unit as recently as April and October 1984 have been quickly overtaken by economic events and need updating. This paper begins with a background of trends in the New Zealand economy and then in chronological order details recent changes in Government Policy. This is followed by a discussion of the implications of these changes for the financing of agriculture. Finally the present state of the agricultural credit market is discussed and some conclusions are drawn. The discussion is based on a variety of sources including MAF, Reserve Bank, Treasury, AERU and private economic reports and data. A considerable part of the material was also obtained from personal correspondence and interviews with people directly involved in the finance industry. The views expressed are, of course those of the authors