The self-extinguishing despot: Millian Democratization

Although there is no more iconic, stalwart, and eloquent defender of liberty and representative democracy than J. S. Mill, he sometimes endorses nondemocratic forms of governance. This article explains the reasons behind this seeming aberration and shows that Mill actually has complex and nuanced views of the transition from nondemocratic to democratic government, including the comprehensive and parallel material, cultural, institutional, and character reforms that must occur, and the mechanism by which they will be enacted. Namely, an enlightened despot must cultivate democratic virtues such as obedience, industriousness, spirit of nationality, and resistance to tyranny in the population and simultaneously prepare the way for his own demise and secure his own legitimacy by transitioning to the rule of law. This challenges recent scholarship that paints Mill's nondemocratic views as crudely and uncritically imperialist, because it fails to recognize and engage seriously with his sophisticated (if ultimately problematic) theory of individual and institutional development under enlightened colonialism. © Copyright Southern Political Science Association 2011.published_or_final_versio

Factors associated with acute kidney injury or failure in children undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass: a case‐controlled study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87176/1/j.1460-9592.2011.03532.x.pd

Statistical process control for data without inherent order

Abstract Background The XmR chart is a powerful analytical tool in statistical process control (SPC) for detecting special causes of variation in a measure of quality. In this analysis a statistic called the average moving range is used as a measure of dispersion of the data. This approach is correct for data with natural underlying order, such as time series data. There is however conflict in the literature over the appropriateness of the XmR chart to analyse data without an inherent ordering. Methods We derive the maxima and minima for the average moving range in data without inherent ordering, and show how to calculate this for any data set. We permute a real world data set and calculate control limits based on these extrema. Results In the real world data set, permuting the order of the data affected an absolute difference of 109 percent in the width of the control limits. Discussion We prove quantitatively that XmR chart analysis is problematic for data without an inherent ordering, and using real-world data, demonstrate the problem this causes for calculating control limits. The resulting ambiguity in the analysis renders it unacceptable as an approach to making decisions based on data without inherent order. Conclusion The XmR chart should only be used for data endowed with an inherent ordering, such as a time series. To detect special causes of variation in data without an inherent ordering we suggest that one of the many well-established approaches to outlier analysis should be adopted. Furthermore we recommend that in all SPC analyses authors should consistently report the type of control chart used, including the measure of variation used in calculating control limits.</p

Porous LSCF/Dense 3YSZ Interface Fracture Toughness Measured by Single Cantilever Beam Wedge Test

Sandwich specimens were prepared by firing a thin inter-layer of porous La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-d (LSCF) to bond a thin tetragonal yttria-stabilised zirconia (YSZ) beam to a thick YSZ substrate. Fracture of the joint was evaluated by introducing a wedge between the two YSZ adherands so that the stored energy in the thin YSZ cantilever beam drives a stable crack in the adhesive bond and allows the critical energy release rate for crack extension (fracture toughness) to be measured. The crack path in most specimens showed a mixture of adhesive failure (at the YSZ-LSCF interface) and cohesive failure (within the LSCF). It was found that the extent of adhesive fracture increased with firing temperature and decreased with LSCF layer thickness. The adhesive failures were mainly at the interface between the LSCF and the thin YSZ beam and FEM modelling revealed that this is due to asymmetric stresses in the LSCF. Within the firing temperature range of 1000-1150C, the bonding fracture toughness appears to have a strong dependence on firing temperature. However, the intrinsic adhesive fracture toughness of the LSCF/YSZ interface was estimated to be 11 Jm2 and was not firing temperature dependent within the temperature range investigated.Comment: 13 figures, 1 table, journal paper publishe

Organisational change in SMEs: change innovators or laggards?

In the international arena, the development and strengthening of SMEs is a priority area for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation due to the significant potential that SMEs hold for future economic growth. A substantial amount of change management research exists internationally and in Australia in relation to the causes, processes and outcomes of organisational change in large organisations. However this does not reflect the change scenarios in SMEs. Furthermore, the academic and professional discipline of organisational change in Australia, while well-researched in some areas, remains embryonic when translated to SMEs in a dynamic environment. Very few large scale national surveys have been conducted in Australia. This study is filling the theoretical gap in relation to the theory and practice relating to the nature, extent and characteristics of organisational change in Australian Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). The objective of this paper is to analyse the nature and extent of organisational change in Australian SMEs. Our research, through a representative large sample survey (n=1230), provides an insight into the contemporary nature and usage of organisational change and provides a picture of contemporary change management in Australian SMEs. The study employed the use of quantitative data which were collected through a national mail survey of 1230 Australian SMEs. The focus of this study is on three interventions for achieving organisational change, including a range of structural; strategic and human process change practices. The results indicate that SMEs are neither change innovators nor laggards, since change practices are only moderately represented in Australian SMEs. Taken together with low participation of employees in the decision to employ these changes; low levels of union membership; a low presence of specialist HR managers in SMEs; and the fact that the majority of SMEs that do have written strategic plans do not use it to develop operational plans and drive day to day operations; a 'change innovation' scenario in Australian SMEs is unlikely. We argue that the pursuit of organisational change should not simply serve as drive for competitive advantage (often resulting in a deterioration of employment conditions), but, rather, it should accommodate the needs of employees, who should also directly benefit from these change initiatives. The advantages of involving employees in change initiatives are numerous. The agenda in Australian SMEs therefore needs to be shifted away from managers/company-driven change (with rhetoric of employee involvement) to genuine and greater employee participation in change initiatives. Questions concerning the substance of change raise a number of practical concerns over how to successfully manage organisational change. Two elements of particular importance centre on understanding what the change programme is about and also, ensuring that employees who have to adopt to new working practices (the changing context) are adequately trained in the use of techniques and/or procedures

The Físchlár digital video recording, analysis, and browsing system

In digital video indexing research area an important technique is called shot boundary detection which automatically segments long video material into camera shots using content-based analysis of video. We have been working on developing various shot boundary detection and representative frame selection techniques to automatically index encoded video stream and provide the end users with video browsing/navigation feature. In this paper we describe a demonstrator digital video system that allows the user to record a TV broadcast programme to MPEG-1 file format and to easily browse and playback the file content online. The system incorporates the shot boundary detection and representative frame selection techniques we have developed and has become a full-featured digital video system that not only demonstrates any further techniques we will develop, but also obtains users’ video browsing behaviour. At the moment the system has a real-user base of about a hundred people and we are closely monitoring how they use the video browsing/navigation feature which the system provides

Incomplete Contracts, Property Rights and Endogenous Outside Options

This paper extends the framework provided by the so-called GHM approach to a context of endogenous outside options, showing how the optimality of property rights assignment might be reversed. In some cases, non-owners could over-invest in specific assets while having mere access to property rights might not prevent hold-up. Our conclusions suggest that in order to reach the desired optimality features, the design of ownership structure should take into account the dynamics of outside options.outside options, property rights allocation, hold-up problem

Evaluating and combining digital video shot boundary detection algorithms

The development of standards for video encoding coupled with the increased power of computing mean that content-based manipulation of digital video information is now feasible. Shots are a basic structural building block of digital video and the boundaries between shots need to be determined automatically to allow for content-based manipulation. A shot can be thought of as continuous images from one camera at a time. In this paper we examine a variety of automatic techniques for shot boundary detection that we have implemented and evaluated on a baseline of 720,000 frames (8 hours) of broadcast television. This extends our previous work on evaluating a single technique based on comparing colour histograms. A description of each of our three methods currently working is given along with how they are evaluated. It is found that although the different methods have about the same order of magnitude in terms of effectiveness, different shot boundaries are detected by the different methods. We then look at combining the three shot boundary detection methods to produce one output result and the benefits in accuracy and performance that this brought to our system. Each of the methods were changed from using a static threshold value for three unconnected methods to one using three dynamic threshold values for one connected method. In a final summing up we look at the future directions for this work