Improving customer satisfaction: changes as a result of Customer Value Discovery

Objective: To identify Gold Standard Services for customers in an academic library and determine whether interventions following the identification of customer value increased student satisfaction. Methods: “Customer Discovery Workshops” were undertaken with academic staff and undergraduate on‐campus students to provide managers and library staff with information on the services and resources that customers valued, and what irritated them about existing services and resources. The impact of interventions was assessed two years after the research using a university student satisfaction survey and an independent national student satisfaction survey. Results: The findings resulted in significant changes to the way forward‐facing customer services were delivered. A number of value adding services were introduced for the customer. Overall customer satisfaction was improved. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2008, 3:1 34 Conclusions: The Customer Value Discovery research has created a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. An operational plan was introduced to track activity and performance against the objectives identified in the customer value research. However, there is a constant need to innovate

Simulating interventions in graphical chain models for longitudinal data

Simulating the outcome of an intervention is a central problem in many fields as this allows decision-makers to quantify the effect of any given strategy and, hence, to evaluate different schemes of actions. Simulation is particularly relevant in very large systems where the statistical model involves many variables that, possibly, interact with each other. In this case one usually has a large number of parameters whose interpretation becomes extremely difficult. Furthermore, in a real system, although one may have a unique target variable, there may be a number of variables which might, and often should, be logically considered predictors of the target outcome and, at the same time, responses of other variables of the system. An intervention taking place on a given variable, therefore, may affect the outcome either directly and indirectly though the way in which it affects other variables within the system. Graphical chain models are particularly helpful in depicting all of the paths through which an intervention may affect the final outcome. Furthermore, they identify all of the relevant conditional distributions and therefore they are particularly useful in driving the simulation process. Focussing on binary variables, we propose a method to simulate the effect of an intervention. Our approach, however, can be easily extended to continuous and mixed responses variables. We apply the proposed methodology to assess the effect that a policy intervention may have on poorer health in early adulthood using prospective data provided by the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study (BCS70).chain graph, conditional approach, Gibbs Sampling, Simulation of interventions, age at motherhood, mental health

Radiative transition rates and collision strengths for Si II

Aims. This work reports radiative transition rates and electron impact excitation collision strengths for levels of the 3s23p, 3s3p2, 3s24s, and 3s23d configurations of Siii. Methods. The radiative data were computed using the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-Amaldi central potential, but with the modifications introduced by Bautista (2008) that account for the effects of electron-electron interactions. We also introduce new schemes for the optimization of the variational parameters of the potential. Additional calculations were carried out with the Relativistic Hartree-Fock and the multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock methods. Collision strengths in LS-coupling were calculated in the close coupling approximation with the R-matrix method. Then, fine structure collision strengths were obtained by means of the intermediate-coupling frame transformation (ICFT) method which accounts for spin-orbit coupling effects. Results. We present extensive comparisons between the results of different approximations and with the most recent calculations and experiment available in the literature. From these comparisons we derive a recommended set of gf- values and radiative transition rates with their corresponding estimated uncertainties. We also study the effects of different approximations in the representation of the target ion on the electron-impact collision strengths. Our most accurate set of collision strengths were integrated over a Maxwellian distribution of electron energies and the resulting effective collision strengths are given for a wide range of temperatures. Our results present significant differences from recent calculations with the B-spline non-orthogonal R-matrix method. We discuss the sources of the differences.Comment: 6 figures, 5 tables within text, 2 electronic table

Atomic data from the IRON Project. I. Electron-impact scattering of Fe17+ using <I>R</I>-matrix theory with intermediate coupling

We present results for electron-impact excitation of F-like Fe calculated using R-matrix theory where an intermediate-coupling frame transformation (ICFT) is used to obtain level-resolved collision strengths. Two such calculations are performed, the first expands the target using 2s2 2p5, 2s 2p6, 2s2 2p4 3l, 2s 2p5 3l, and 2p6 3l configurations while the second calculation includes the 2s2 2p4 4l, 2s 2p5 4l, and 2p6 4l configurations as well. The effect of the additional structure in the latter calculation on the n=3 resonances is explored and compared with previous calculations. We find strong resonant enhancement of the effective collision strengths to the 2s2 2p4 3s levels. A comparison with a Chandra X-ray observation of Capella shows that the n=4 R-matrix calculation leads to good agreement with observation</p

Multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock energy levels and transition probabilities for 3d^5 in Fe IV

Multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock electric quadrupole (E2) and magnetic dipole (M1) transition probabilities are reported for transitions between levels of 3d^5 in [Fe IV]. The accuracy of the ab initio energy levels and the agreement in the length and velocity forms of the line strength for the E2 transitions are used as indicators of accuracy. The present E2 and M1 transition probabilities are compared with earlier Breit-Pauli results and other theories. An extensive set of transition probabilites with indicators of accuracy are reported in Appendices A and B. Recommended values of A(E2) + A(M1) are listed in Appendix C.Comment: 16 pages, three appendices containing accuracy indicators and recommended values for E2 and M1 transition rate

The influence of electron collisions on non-LTE Li line formation in stellar atmospheres

The influence of the uncertainties in the rate coefficient data for electron-impact excitation and ionization on non-LTE Li line formation in cool stellar atmospheres is investigated. We examine the electron collision data used in previous non-LTE calculations and compare them to recent calculations that use convergent close-coupling (CCC) techniques and to our own calculations using the R-matrix with pseudostates (RMPS) method. We find excellent agreement between rate coefficients from the CCC and RMPS calculations, and reasonable agreement between these data and the semi-empirical data used in non-LTE calculations up to now. The results of non-LTE calculations using the old and new data sets are compared and only small differences found: about 0.01 dex (~ 2%) or less in the abundance corrections. We therefore conclude that the influence on non-LTE calculations of uncertainties in the electron collision data is negligible. Indeed, together with the collision data for the charge exchange process Li(3s) + H Li^+ + H^- now available, and barring the existence of an unknown important collisional process, the collisional data in general is not a source of significant uncertainty in non-LTE Li line formation calculations.Comment: 8 pages, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics; Replaced with minor corrections following proof

Relativistic photoionization cross sections for C II

High resolution measurements of photoionization cross sections for atomic ions are now being made on synchrotron radiation sources. The recent measurements by Kjeldsen etal. (1999) showed good agreement between the observed resonance features and the the theoretical calculations in the close coupling approximation (Nahar 1995). However, there were several observed resonances that were missing in the theoretical predictions. The earlier theoretical calculation was carried out in LS coupling where the relativistic effects were not included. Present work reports photoionization cross sections including the relativistic effects in Breit-Pauli R-matrix (BPRM) approximation. The configuration interaction eigenfunction expansion for the core ion C III consists of 20 fine structure levels dominated by the configurations from 1s^22s^2 to 1s^22s3d. Detailed features in the calculated cross sections exhibit the missing resonances due to fine structure. The results benchmark the accuracy of BPRM photoionization cross sections as needed for recent and ongoing experiments.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Squamous Cell Carcinoma in a Heel Ulcer in a Patient With Diabetes

A technique for measuring B-H curves of grain-oriented silicon steel along arbitrary directions has been developed. As the control of waveform is not necessary in this technique, it is possible to measure B-H curves up to high flux densities which are required for calculating flux distribution using the finite element method</p

The peculiar B-type supergiant HD327083

Coude spectroscopic data of a poorly-studied peculiar supergiant, HD327083, are presented. Halpha and Hbeta line profiles have been fitted employing a non-LTE code adequate for spherically expanding atmospheres. Line fits lead to estimates of physical parameters. These parameters suggest that HD327083 may be close to the Luminous Blue Variable phase but it is also possible that it could be a B[e] Supergiant.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A Lette