Considering the Human Element of Long-Term IT Outsourcing: A Case Study of an Australian Bank

While many studies on outsourcing have identified its advantages and disadvantages from an organizational perspective, there has been insufficient attention paid to the impact of outsourcing on employees. A case study methodology was used in the analysis of the effects of IT outsourcing on the well-being of IT professionals working in a leading Australian bank. Despite the success of the outsourcing initiative for the organization, evidence from an intranet forum established in the six months prior to the outsourcing transition and surveys conducted of remaining staff two years post-implementation revealed a high degree of non-acceptance by both sets of workers. This arose despite managementâs attempts to communicate effectively with staff. Within this same period, the bank also had to adjust to the effects of a new psychological contract to which the now outsourced IT staff were working. The study concludes that the disaffection of staff resulted mainly from a lack of consultation during decision-making steps and a sense of powerlessness to influence management. Suggestions are provided as to how outsourcing could be accomplished in ways that improve employee acceptance and reactions to change

A note on Makeev's conjectures

A counterexample is given for the Knaster-like conjecture of Makeev for functions on $S^2$. Some particular cases of another conjecture of Makeev, on inscribing a quadrangle into a smooth simple closed curve, are solved positively

On Poincare and logarithmic Sobolev inequalities for a class of singular Gibbs measures

This note, mostly expository, is devoted to Poincar{\'e} and log-Sobolev inequalities for a class of Boltzmann-Gibbs measures with singular interaction. Such measures allow to model one-dimensional particles with confinement and singular pair interaction. The functional inequalities come from convexity. We prove and characterize optimality in the case of quadratic confinement via a factorization of the measure. This optimality phenomenon holds for all beta Hermite ensembles including the Gaussian unitary ensemble, a famous exactly solvable model of random matrix theory. We further explore exact solvability by reviewing the relation to Dyson-Ornstein-Uhlenbeck diffusion dynamics admitting the Hermite-Lassalle orthogonal polynomials as a complete set of eigenfunctions. We also discuss the consequence of the log-Sobolev inequality in terms of concentration of measure for Lipschitz functions such as maxima and linear statistics.Comment: Minor improvements. To appear in Geometric Aspects of Functional Analysis -- Israel Seminar (GAFA) 2017-2019", Lecture Notes in Mathematics 225

On the Decomposition of Clifford Algebras of Arbitrary Bilinear Form

Clifford algebras are naturally associated with quadratic forms. These algebras are Z_2-graded by construction. However, only a Z_n-gradation induced by a choice of a basis, or even better, by a Chevalley vector space isomorphism Cl(V) \bigwedge V and an ordering, guarantees a multi-vector decomposition into scalars, vectors, tensors, and so on, mandatory in physics. We show that the Chevalley isomorphism theorem cannot be generalized to algebras if the Z_n-grading or other structures are added, e.g., a linear form. We work with pairs consisting of a Clifford algebra and a linear form or a Z_n-grading which we now call 'Clifford algebras of multi-vectors' or 'quantum Clifford algebras'. It turns out, that in this sense, all multi-vector Clifford algebras of the same quadratic but different bilinear forms are non-isomorphic. The usefulness of such algebras in quantum field theory and superconductivity was shown elsewhere. Allowing for arbitrary bilinear forms however spoils their diagonalizability which has a considerable effect on the tensor decomposition of the Clifford algebras governed by the periodicity theorems, including the Atiyah-Bott-Shapiro mod 8 periodicity. We consider real algebras Cl_{p,q} which can be decomposed in the symmetric case into a tensor product Cl_{p-1,q-1} \otimes Cl_{1,1}. The general case used in quantum field theory lacks this feature. Theories with non-symmetric bilinear forms are however needed in the analysis of multi-particle states in interacting theories. A connection to q-deformed structures through nontrivial vacuum states in quantum theories is outlined.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX, {Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Clifford Algebras and their Applications in Mathematical Physics, Ixtapa, Mexico, June 27 - July 4, 199

Consciousness and the Physical World

The main file in this deposition is a pdf file containing the scanned pages of the Proceedings. Additional files OCR.txt and OCR.pdf (the latter having the same pagination as the book) are included to simplify search, etc. Because of their automated creation using software, the accuracy of the OCR files cannot be guaranteed, though some checking has been carried out. In the scanned version, entering 'go to page n' in a pdf reader will access the pair of pages 2n and 2n+1. Alternatively, go to the contents pages (accessible via 'go to page', entering 'contents' at the prompt) for the numbers to use with 'go to' for specific chapters. © By arrangement with the publishers, the editors (Brian D Josephson and Vilayanur S Ramachandran) are the present copyright holders. They grant permission for the use of the material in this book in accord with the terms of the CC licence below.Edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978. The purpose of the Cambridge conference was to encourage distinguished scientists to express their views on the relationship of conscious experience to the physical world.The conference was supported by a grant from Research Corporation of New York

The Wasteland of Random Supergravities

We show that in a general \cal{N} = 1 supergravity with N \gg 1 scalar fields, an exponentially small fraction of the de Sitter critical points are metastable vacua. Taking the superpotential and Kahler potential to be random functions, we construct a random matrix model for the Hessian matrix, which is well-approximated by the sum of a Wigner matrix and two Wishart matrices. We compute the eigenvalue spectrum analytically from the free convolution of the constituent spectra and find that in typical configurations, a significant fraction of the eigenvalues are negative. Building on the Tracy-Widom law governing fluctuations of extreme eigenvalues, we determine the probability P of a large fluctuation in which all the eigenvalues become positive. Strong eigenvalue repulsion makes this extremely unlikely: we find P \propto exp(-c N^p), with c, p being constants. For generic critical points we find p \approx 1.5, while for approximately-supersymmetric critical points, p \approx 1.3. Our results have significant implications for the counting of de Sitter vacua in string theory, but the number of vacua remains vast.Comment: 39 pages, 9 figures; v2: fixed typos, added refs and clarification

A note on perturbation series in supersymmetric gauge theories

Exact results in supersymmetric Chern-Simons and N=2 Yang-Mills theories can be used to examine the quantum behavior of observables and the structure of the perturbative series. For the U(2) x U(2) ABJM model, we determine the asymptotic behavior of the perturbative series for the partition function and write it as a Borel transform. Similar results are obtained for N=2 SU(2) super Yang-Mills theory with four fundamental flavors and in N=2* super Yang-Mills theory, for the partition function as well as for the expectation values for Wilson loop and 't Hooft loop operators (in the 0 and 1 instanton sectors). In all examples, one has an alternate perturbation series where the coefficient of the nth term increases as n!, and the perturbation series are Borel summable. We also calculate the expectation value for a Wilson loop operator in the N=2* SU(N) theory at large N in different regimes of the 't Hooft gauge coupling and mass parameter. For large masses, the calculation reproduces the running gauge coupling for the pure N=2 SYM theory.Comment: 28 pages. V2: minor additions and reference adde

A single sub-km Kuiper Belt object from a stellar Occultation in archival data

The Kuiper belt is a remnant of the primordial Solar System. Measurements of its size distribution constrain its accretion and collisional history, and the importance of material strength of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). Small, sub-km sized, KBOs elude direct detection, but the signature of their occultations of background stars should be detectable. Observations at both optical and X-ray wavelengths claim to have detected such occultations, but their implied KBO abundances are inconsistent with each other and far exceed theoretical expectations. Here, we report an analysis of archival data that reveals an occultation by a body with a 500 m radius at a distance of 45 AU. The probability of this event to occur due to random statistical fluctuations within our data set is about 2%. Our survey yields a surface density of KBOs with radii larger than 250 m of 2.1^{+4.8}_{-1.7} x 10^7 deg^{-2}, ruling out inferred surface densities from previous claimed detections by more than 5 sigma. The fact that we detected only one event, firmly shows a deficit of sub-km sized KBOs compared to a population extrapolated from objects with r>50 km. This implies that sub-km sized KBOs are undergoing collisional erosion, just like debris disks observed around other stars.Comment: To appear in Nature on December 17, 2009. Under press embargo until 1800 hours London time on 16 December. 19 pages; 7 figure