The selfish signifier: meaning, virulence and transmissibility in a management fashion

Purpose. Management fashions can be, and have been, conceptualized as narrative elements competing for replication and resources in the wider managerial discourse. Most wax and wane through a life cycle. Some achieve an extended place and even a transition to quasi permanent institutions. Facilities / Facility Management (FM) is one such example. Design/methodology/approach. The case draws FM’s history since 1968 and asks whether it is compatible with recent and classic (Darwin 1871) thoughts on cultural evolution as a selection process between competing discourses. Findings. Several properties of that history are argued as compatible with the theoretical stance taken particularly the mutation of the syntactic content to suit local circumstances and the dilution of the term’s intent. Success attributes in the selective competition include contingency, securing an organizational home and mutability (what was represented became, more operational, less virulent but in the process more transmissible). In spreading globally the signifier / meme FM also proved mutatable to local managerial discourses. Originality/value The study supports a developing paradigm that it is possible to view organizations as ecologies of variously, memes, signifiers, narratives, representations or discourses. All five terms are shown to have been used to make similar significations by different authors. It shows how a natural history of narrative memes can be constructed

Foreign direct investment and prospects for the northern region

This paper's purpose is to review the recent experience of foreign direct investment (FDI) in North East England, and to explore the implications of this for the region's prospective economic development. Foreign-owned plants are reckoned to account for more than half the North East's employment in manufacturing, so that the future economic prospects of the region rest heavily on the performance of this stock of FDI plants. Further, the attraction of FDI continues to be a vital component of the region's economic strategy (One NorthEast, 2005), while the Regional Development Agency (RDA) supports initiatives to both develop and "embed" these plants in the region

The Institute for Fiscal Studies Report: English Council Funding: What’s Happened and What’s Next?

The article reviews the recent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IfFS) report, English Council Funding: What’s Happened and What’s Next. The article provides an overview of the main themesand findings of the report which examines the consequences of a sustained period of austerity for English local government and the impact of austerity on certain key council services.The article explores what the report has to say about the way councils have responded to reductions in government funding and the strategies they have developed to protect certain frontline services. The article reviews the suggestions made in the IfFS report for changing English local government funding and finds that they reflect a form of centralist thinking which lacks a radical edge when it comes to reform

A Parametric Multi-Convex Splitting Technique with Application to Real-Time NMPC

A novel splitting scheme to solve parametric multiconvex programs is presented. It consists of a fixed number of proximal alternating minimisations and a dual update per time step, which makes it attractive in a real-time Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) framework and for distributed computing environments. Assuming that the parametric program is semi-algebraic and that its KKT points are strongly regular, a contraction estimate is derived and it is proven that the sub-optimality error remains stable if two key parameters are tuned properly. Efficacy of the method is demonstrated by solving a bilinear NMPC problem to control a DC motor.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of the 53rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 201

A thematic synthesis of the experiences of adults living with hemodialysis

Background and objectives In-center dialysis patients spend significant amounts of time on the dialysis unit; additionally managing ESKD affects many aspects of life outside the dialysis unit. To improve the care provided to patients requiring hemodialysis their experiences and beliefs regarding treatment must be understood. This systematic review aimed to synthesise the experiences of patients receiving in-center hemodialysis. Design, setting, participants, and measurements Embase, MEDLINE, CINAHL and PsychINFO, Google scholar and reference lists were searched for primary qualitative studies exploring the experiences of adult patients receiving treatment with in-center hemodialysis. A thematic synthesis was conducted. Results 17 studies involving 576 patients were included in the synthesis. 4 analytical themes were developed. The first theme “a new dialysis dependent self” describes the changes in identity and perceptions of self that could result from dialysis dependence. The second theme, “a restricted life”, describes the physical and emotional constraints patients described as a consequence of their dependence. Some patients reported strategies that allowed them to regain a sense of optimism and influence over the future and these contributed to the third theme, “regaining control”. The first three themes describe a potential for change through acceptance, adaption and re-gaining a sense of control. The final theme, “relationships with health professionals” describes the importance of these relationships for in-center patients and their influence on perceptions of power and support. These relationships are seen to influence the other three themes through information sharing, continuity and personalized support. Conclusions This synthesis has resulted in a framework that can be utilized to consider interventions to improve patients’ experiences of in-center hemodialysis care. Focusing on interventions that are incorporated into the established relationships patients have with their health care professionals may enable patients’ to progress towards a sense of control and improve satisfaction with care

Analytics and complexity: learning and leading for the future

There is growing interest in the application of learning analytics to manage, inform and improve learning and teaching within higher education. In particular, learning analytics is seen as enabling data-driven decision making as universities are seeking to respond a range of significant challenges that are reshaping the higher education landscape. Experience over four years with a project exploring the use of learning analytics to improve learning and teaching at a particular university has, however, revealed a much more complex reality that potentially limits the value of some analytics-based strategies. This paper uses this experience with over 80,000 students across three learning management systems, combined with literature from complex adaptive systems and learning analytics to identify the source and nature of these limitations along with a suggested path forward

Raising the Datagram API to Support Transport Protocol Evolution

Some application developers can wield huge resources to build new transport protocols, for these developers the present UDP Socket API is perfectly fine. They have access to large test beds and sophisticated tools. Many developers do not have these resources. This paper presents a new high-level Datagram API that is for everyone else, this has an advantage of offering a clear evolutionary path to support new requirements. This new API is needed to move forward the base of the system, allowing developers with limited resources to evolve their applications while accessing new network services