21st Century Managers and Intuition: Evaluating the learning achieved from an Example of Pedagogic Change for Business Undergraduates

A key requirement for effective research on pedagogy and course redesign is a credible measure (or measures) of student learning on completion of individual modules or even specific teaching initiatives. This has proved difficult to achieve for business courses for some subjects - in particular for the teaching of soft skills such as team working. Traditional methods such as examinations are inappropriate. This paper reports on a novel approach to the evaluation of an exercise, designed to develop business students’ skill of managerial intuition. Changing business conditions are placing a greater value on managers’ ability to deal with open-ended complex (wicked) problems. One academic stream of work has identified that managerial intuition is the key to handling such problems effectively. This, like all skills, can best be acquired through practice. An exercise designed to give small teams of students experience of such a problem was designed for a module delivered during the 1st year of a business degree at Business SchoolX. In parallel students were required to carry out both team and individual reflections that focused on the learning achieved on this exercise. Since the reflective practice was required and marked this ensured that we obtained a comprehensive response from almost all students on the course. Reflective practice can be anonymised and draws on an individual’s most deeply held thinking. This year (2015/16) is the first attempt at carrying out an evaluation exercise of this type. The paper reports on the preliminary results from the Autumn Term module

The challenge of introducing the subject of research and research methods to business undergraduates

The research process is complex, involving many conceptually different steps. The identification of a suitable problem can be a challenge involving a high level of creativity, whereas applying a chosen research method must follow accepted and well defined rules. How researchers iterate between current discipline theory, subject knowledge and research methodology is usually opaque to the outside researcher. Students with no exposure to research find this puzzling because they are being encouraged to do something creative and original, and at the same time to adopt clearly defined language and a set of conventions associated with the chosen methodology. Business students in their 1st year face many new situations. Most of them have little experience of what research is about or the various elements that are necessary for a successful project. The teaching at school level mostly focuses on imparting subject knowledge and instilling basic numeracy and literary skills. It does not prepare them so well for setting their own goals and working independently - the core of research. Traditional teaching methods can help them acquire the relevant subject knowledge and basic research methods. But putting these together in a piece of practical research requires in depth understanding and creative thinking. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a way to help UG students at the beginning of their research attempts to develop the mindset and skills needed. This paper makes the case for introducing Critical Thinking skills to Business Management students in their 1st year, using a problem-based Learning (PBL) approach

The topological dimension of type I C*-algebras

While there is only one natural dimension concept for separable, metric spaces, the theory of dimension in noncommutative topology ramifies into different important concepts. To accommodate this, we introduce the abstract notion of a noncommutative dimension theory by proposing a natural set of axioms. These axioms are inspired by properties of commutative dimension theory, and they are for instance satisfied by the real and stable rank, the decomposition rank and the nuclear dimension. We add another theory to this list by showing that the topological dimension, as introduced by Brown and Pedersen, is a noncommutative dimension theory of type I C*-algebras. We also give estimates of the real and stable rank of a type I C*-algebra in terms of its topological dimension.Comment: 20 pages; minor correction

The Two-Spectra Inverse Problem for Semi-Infinite Jacobi Matrices in The Limit-Circle Case

We present a technique for reconstructing a semi-infinite Jacobi operator in the limit circle case from the spectra of two different self-adjoint extensions. Moreover, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for two real sequences to be the spectra of two different self-adjoint extensions of a Jacobi operator in the limit circle case.Comment: 26 pages. Changes in the presentation of some result

Pedagogy and Evaluation: The Challenge for Business and Management Degree Courses in the 21st Century

The twenty first century has been a period of major change for business organisations and industries. This has led to an ever greater interest in and demand for managers with not only the traditional subject knowledge and technical skills but also individual business skills.To meet these demands business schools are under pressure to adapt their courses appropriately and to innovate. For an undergraduate degree in business management, this includes both the structure of the degree, the subjects covered, the teaching methods used and the whole student learning experience. But innovation poses a major challenge for researchers and teachers alike – how can the effect of an innovation be measured or assessed?This paper assesses the current state of evaluation methods applied in Business Schools. Student feedback has emerged as the dominant approach, but application is still at a fairly basic level. A case example of evaluating the new first year redesign of the business management degree at City’s Business School is used to illustrate the practical issues involved. Student feedback offers some indication of the success of the redesigned degree, but it does not entail any constructive dialogue between students and lecturers, and students often lack the skills to frame feedback constructively. The paper discusses the implications of changes in the business context for the evaluation methods used in Business Schools

Diquark condensation at strong coupling

The possibility of diquark condensation at sufficiently large baryon chemical potential and zero temperature is analyzed in QCD at strong coupling. In agreement with other strong coupling analysis, it is found that a first order phase transition separates a low density phase with chiral symmetry spontaneously broken from a high density phase where chiral symmetry is restored. In none of the phases diquark condensation takes place as an equilibrium state, but, for any value of the chemical potential, there is a metastable state characterized by a non-vanishing diquark condensate. The energy difference between this metastable state and the equilibrium state decreases with the chemical potential and is minimum in the high density phase. The results indicate that there is attraction in the quark-quark sector also at strong coupling, and that the attraction is more effective at high baryon density, but for infinite coupling it is not enough to produce diquark condensation. It is argued that the absence of diquark condensation is not a peculiarity of the strong coupling limit, but persists at sufficiently large finite couplings.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. An important discussion concerning the extension of the results to finite couplings adde

Detecting local synchronization in coupled chaotic systems

We introduce a technique to detect and quantify local functional dependencies between coupled chaotic systems. The method estimates the fraction of locally syncronized configurations, in a pair of signals with an arbitrary state of global syncronization. Application to a pair of interacting Rossler oscillators shows that our method is capable to quantify the number of dynamical configurations where a local prediction task is possible, also in absence of global synchronization features

FRACTURE BEHAVIOR OF ALLOY 600, ALLOY 690, EN82H WELDS AND EN52 WELDS IN WATER

The cracking resistance of Alloy 600, Alloy 690 and their welds, EN82H and EN52, was characterized by conducting J{sub IC} rising load tests in air and hydrogenated water and cooldown testing in water under constant-displacement conditions. All test materials displayed excellent toughness in air and high temperature water, but Alloy 690 and the two welds were severely embrittled in low temperature water. In 54 C water with 150 cc H{sub 2}/kg H{sub 2}O, J{sub IC} values were reduced by 70% to 95%, relative to their air counterpart. The toughness degradation was associated with a fracture mechanism transition from microvoid coalescence to intergranular fracture. Comparison of the cracking response in water with that for hydrogen-precharged specimens tested in air demonstrated that susceptibility to low temperature crack propagation (LTCP) is due to hydrogen embrittlement of grain boundaries. The effects of water temperature, hydrogen content and loading rate on LTCP were studied. In addition, testing of specimens containing natural weld defects and as-machined notches was performed to determine if low temperature cracking can initiate at these features. Unlike the other materials, Alloy 600 is not susceptible to LTCP as the toughness in 54 C water remained high and a microvoid coalescence mechanism was operative in both air and water. Cooldown testing of EN82H welds under constant-displacement conditions was performed to determine if LTCP data from rising load J{sub IC}/K{sub Pmax} tests predict the onset of LTCP for other load paths. In these tests, bolt-loaded CT specimens were subjected to 288 C water for up to 1 week, cooled to 54 C and held in 54 C hydrogenated water for 1 week. This cycle was repeated up to 6 times. For two of the three welds tested, critical K{sub I} levels for LTCP under constant-displacement conditions were much higher than rising load K{sub Pmax} values. Bolt-loaded specimens from a third weld were found to exhibit LTCP at K{sub I} levels comparable to K{sub Pmax} values. Although work to date indicates that rising load tests either accurately or conservatively predict the critical conditions for LTCP under constant displacement conditions, the potential for LTCP at K{sub I} levels less than K{sub Pmax} has not been fully evaluated. Annealing at 1093 C reduces or eliminates LTCP susceptibility. The microstructure and mechanical properties for susceptible and nonsusceptible EN82H welds were characterized to identify the key material parameters responsible for LTCP in the as-welded condition. The key microstructural feature associated with LTCP appears to be fine Nb- and Ti-rich carbonitrides decorating grain boundaries. In addition, the higher yield strength for the as-fabricated weld also promotes LTCP because it increases stresses and local hydrogen concentrations ahead of a crack

Effects of friction on cosmic strings

We study the evolution of cosmic strings taking into account the frictional force due to the surrounding radiation. We consider small perturbations on straight strings, oscillation of circular loops and small perturbations on circular loops. For straight strings, friction exponentially suppresses perturbations whose co-moving scale crosses the horizon before cosmological time $t_*\sim \mu^{-2}$ (in Planck units), where $\mu$ is the string tension. Loops with size much smaller than $t_*$ will be approximately circular at the time when they start the relativistic collapse. We investigate the possibility that such loops will form black holes. We find that the number of black holes which are formed through this process is well bellow present observational limits, so this does not give any lower or upper bounds on $\mu$. We also consider the case of straight strings attached to walls and circular holes that can spontaneously nucleate on metastable domain walls.Comment: 32 pages, TUTP-93-