Personalisation and its implications for work and employment in the voluntary sector

This report assesses the impact of personalisation on social care, particularly focussing on implications for the workforce. Personalisation is often presented as being transformative in the manner in which it empowers both people who use services and employees. The report considers the latter aspect in particular by assessing some of the workforce implications of personalisation. It reports research drawn from policymakers and three voluntary organisations, with interviews with managers, employees and people who use services. The main findings from the research are: Policymakers were enthusiastic about the potential benefits of personalisation with regard to the opportunities for the independence of people who receive services and enhancement of workforce skills. Policymakers feared the impact of public spending cuts and recognised the cultural and operational barriers within local authorities to the implementation of personalisation. Policymakers were enthusiastic about the role of the voluntary sector and its workforce in terms of its contribution to delivering personalised services, whilst recognising concerns about skills gaps among employees and the impact of deteriorating terms and conditions of employment on worker morale. Management in the three organisations largely embraced the principles of personalisation, whilst also recognising the pressure from local authorities to use the personalisation agenda to cut costs. Employees in the main understood the principles of personalisation but revealed limited awareness of the implications for the changes in service budgets. Organisations were changing their approach to staff recruitment in order to develop a better fit between the interests of people receiving services and employees delivering them. Management anticipated significant changes to the working hours of employees providing personalised services, which was met with a degree of anxiety among some employees. Management recognised the need to address skills gaps among employees in areas such as risk enablement, decision-making and community connecting. Employees generally welcomed the potential enhancement of their skills through personalisation. Job security concerns were apparent among the majority of front-line employees as a consequence of personalisation. Organisations were balancing the move towards risk enablement and cutting costs with the need to protect service user and worker health and safety, particularly in relation to managing challenging behavior. Personalisation brings with it the potential to fragment pay and conditions away from collective terms towards linking them more closely to the value of individual service budgets. People who receive services revealed limited awareness of changes to service budgets, their choices over the service provider, choices over who provides their services and there was limited evidence of empowerment and greater choice

Chocolate spot of faba beans in South Australia

Entry of inoculum into a crop and disease development in the crop cannot be prevented because spores are airborne and there is a lack of highly resistant varieties. This makes complete control of chocolate spot unlikely. It should however, be possible to improve current levels of disease control through the integration of the factors identified in the studyThesis (M.Ag.Sc.) -- University of Adelaide, Departments of Plant Science and Crop Protection, 199

Contributions to the study of nonholonomic Riemannian manifolds

Restricted access-thesis under 2 years embarg

Leon Trotsky: Three Aspects

This thesis examines three aspects of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940). Chapter One analyses Trotsky's most famous, and most written about, 'theory of permanent revolution'. Defining theory as explanation, it is argued that one cannot talk of a specific 'theory of permanent revolution'. Trotsky introduced laws of uneven and combined development, and it was these that acted as the explanation of the component parts of 'permanent revolution' - (i) the Russian proletariat could seize power before the Russian bourgeoisie; (ii) that once in command the Russian proletariat would introduce socialist measures; (iii) that world revolution would be necessary for full socialism to be constructed. This does not mean that the notion of 'permanent revolution' has to be abandoned. It can be retained, but as a political programme

Invariant optimal control on the three-dimensional semi-Euclidean group: control affine and quadratic Hamilton-Poisson systems

In this thesis we consider invariant control systems and Hamilton-Poisson systems on the three dimensional semi-Euclidean group SE(1,1). We first classify the left-invariant control affine systems (under detached feedback equivalence). We provide a complete list of normal forms, as well as classifying conditions. As a corollary to this classification, we derive controllability criteria for control affine systems on SE(1,1). Secondly, we consider quadratic Hamilton-Poisson systems on the (minus) Lie-Poisson space se(1,1)*. These systems are classified up to an affine isomorphism. Six normal forms are identified for the homogeneous case, whereas sixteen representatives (including several infinite families) are obtained for the inhomogeneous systems. Thereafter we consider the stability and integration of the normal forms obtained. For all homogeneous systems, and a subclass of inhomogeneous systems, we perform a complete stability analysis and derive explicit expressions for all integral curves. (The extremal controls of a large class of optimal control problems on SE(1,1) are linearly related to these integral curves.) Lastly, we discuss the Riemannian and sub-Riemannian problems. The (left-invariant) Riemannian and sub-Riemannian structures on SE(1,1) are classified, up to isometric group automorphisms and scaling. Explicit expressions for the geodesics of the normalised structures are found

Combs and comb production in the Western Isles during the Norse period

This paper explores the significance of an assemblage of combs and comb-making debris from a Norse settlement, Bornais, in the Western Isles of Scotland. The excavation of an 11th century AD house recovered a substantial assemblage of combs which appear to have been brought to the house to be dismantled systematically. It is argued that many of the combs were reworked into decorative pendants and reusable fragments were extracted to create repair kits. On the basis of a series of experimental reconstructions the process of comb production is reconsidered and the insight gained is applied to a comb-makers’ workshop found at Bornais that dates to the 13th century AD. The presence of this workshop and of several Norwegian-style combs suggests the continuation of contacts with Scandinavia beyond the Scottish takeover of the islands

A CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS OF INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN THE U.S. PROCESSED FOOD AND BEVERAGE SECTORS

This paper analyzes the determinants of variation across industries in levels of intra-industry trade (IIT) for a sample of 36 U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focused on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The determinants predicted by IIT theory are measures of product differentiation, economies of scale, and imperfect competition; the results of this analysis indicate that IIT variation across the food and beverage industries is positively related to product differentiation, U.S. total trade, similarity of tariff barriers among trade partners, and economies of scope, but negatively related to industry concentration.International Relations/Trade,

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE IN PROCESSED FOODS: PATTERNS AND CURIOSITIES

International Relations/Trade,