Growth and Inequality in Ireland, 1987 - 1999

This paper analyses data from the Irish Household Budget Surveys of 1987, 1994 and 1999 to examine the evolution of inequality of income and expenditure over that period. The paper calculates Lorenz and Generalised Lorenz curves and also the Growth Incidence Curve of Ravallion and Chen to investigate the extent to which growth was “pro-poor”. The paper also examines the composition of changes in inequality of income over the period.Growth, inequality, Lorenz, Generalised Lorenz, growth incidence curve

Implementing a change initiative within a university department of accountancy and finance to improve teacher practice and student learning

This paper describes a module review research project undertaken within a university Department of Accountancy and Finance. It is based on a policy and change practice approach to help staff in the ‘Scholarship of Teaching and Learning’ (SoTL) so that they develop and adopt new practices or enhance existing practices. The reason for this initiative has its foundations in the review of the university strategic direction (macro level), which was undertaken in the summer of 2013. This resulted in a five year strategy map covering the period 2013-2018. Within the strategy map are a number of ‘key performance indicators’ (KPIs) that will be used to evaluate progress over the coming years. One of the KPIs is that 70% of undergraduate students by 2018 will be attaining a first or upper second class degree. To reach this target requires a period of change to teaching, learning and assessment practices and processes; there was a need to encourage staff to change their practices, given that entry tariff points for undergraduates had been raised already as one contributory factor. However, data to identify ‘issues’ was insufficient to support staff in diagnosing areas of apparent under performance across the range of modules in undergraduate study, in addition to identifying areas of good practice where performance was higher. The department therefore took the initiative to investigate staff and student views on a number of modules where a crude measure of average performance was used in the absence of more detailed data (either below or well above average for a cohort of students). This would allow comparisons to be made and permit aspects of best practice to be utilised in areas that required an intervention while making sure that staff leading the identified modules were closely involved in the change practice to ensure commitment and sustainability of changes. If we look at the literature, one can sympathise with the argument put forward by Delpit (as cited in Heimens, 2012) that there is a push for educators to raise test scores rather than emphasising the development of people; that is, teachers and learners in higher education. However, teachers can circumvent the system by acting as ‘street level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, as cited in Heimans, 2012). Here there is an ongoing interplay between micro and macro level education, whereby actors influence the environment in a ‘bottom-up’ process (Archer, 2010). Thus, policies and procedures are re-interpreted for implementation below macro level. This research project aims to bring about real change and improvement including developing staff ability to engage in future improvement projects

Management Reorganizations in the THB Global Banks - A Case Study

The dissertation focuses on the multiple reorganizations of Manufacturers Hanover between March 1985 and June 1991. The research sought to find a relationship with the reorganizations and the stock price and performance measures of the Bank. The purpose was to determine if the reorganizations provided a measurable impact on theperformance of the Bank. The conclusions of this research established that the reorganizations, if intended to improve the performance of the Bank, were not effective

Applying Bag of System Calls for Anomalous Behavior Detection of Applications in Linux Containers

In this paper, we present the results of using bags of system calls for learning the behavior of Linux containers for use in anomaly-detection based intrusion detection system. By using system calls of the containers monitored from the host kernel for anomaly detection, the system does not require any prior knowledge of the container nature, neither does it require altering the container or the host kernel.Comment: Published version available on IEEE Xplore (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7414047/) arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1611.0305

A study of some of the psychological aspects of the advertising and sales procedures and technique as employed by the Coca Cola Company of America

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

Multispectral imaging of organ viability during uterine transplantation surgery in rabbits and sheep

Uterine transplantation surgery (UTx) has been proposed as a treatment for permanent absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI) in the case of the congenital absence or surgical removal of the uterus. Successful surgical attachment of the organ and its associated vasculature is essential for the organ’s reperfusion and long-term viability. Spectral imaging techniques have demonstrated the potential for the measurement of hemodynamics in medical applications. These involve the measurement of reflectance spectra by acquiring images of the tissue in different wavebands. Measures of tissue constituents at each pixel can then be extracted from these spectra through modeling of the light–tissue interaction. A multispectral imaging (MSI) laparoscope was used in sheep and rabbit UTx models to study short- and long-term changes in oxygen saturation following surgery. The whole organ was imaged in the donor and recipient animals in parallel with point measurements from a pulse oximeter. Imaging results confirmed the re-establishment of adequate perfusion in the transplanted organ after surgery. Cornual oxygenation trends measured with MSI are consistent with pulse oximeter readings, showing decreased StO2 immediately after anastomosis of the blood vessels. Long-term results show recovery of StO2 to preoperative levels

Killing more than the radio star: online video and consumer engagement in the relationship economy

Drawing theoretically on the notion of the relationship economy as a new marketing dimension based around social media, this paper makes a contribution to a key debate within contemporary strategy. Using the company based experiences of one of the authors, who was employed with responsibility for developing an online video presence, this paper examines the emerging use of video as a central element within the relationship marketing strategy of a national company in the B2C flower market. Research findings illustrate the strong interconnectedness that exists between relationship marketing, consumer engagement and consumer experiences. These are pertinent factors identified in the literature, but subjected collectively, too little empirical work. Within the framework of a case study based action research methodology, a nascent online video strategy is discussed and some resulting conceptual implications examined. What the findings demonstrate is that consumers are no longer passive recipients of company communications, products and services. Alternatively, they are now engaged through video and related online media in a new form of relationship marketing that is poised to replace not only traditional strategic frameworks, but patterns of thinking regarding how we understand consumer activity in market