Project management: A Handbook of fundamentals for the packaging student and professional with a review of current literature

This thesis seeks to introduce the basic concepts and techniques of project management to packaging students and professionals. After reviewing these fundamentals, packaging students and professionals should be able to facilitate successful project management in the work place: Develop an appropriate project plan for specific objectives Understand the scheduling techniques such as work breakdown structure, Gantt Charting, PERT Charting, Network Diagramming, Assign resources and manage the project team Interpret and optimize a project plan or schedule Identify and manage project dependencies Communicate project status information appropriately and effectively Determine the impact of potential problems and make appropriate decisions for project adjustment

Fostering Teacher Learning Communities: A Case Study of a School-Based Leadership Team's Action Research

The purpose of this study is to examine how a school-based leadership team identifies and alters school conditions to foster the development of TLCs. Many educators, school leaders, and politicians have embraced teacher learning communities (TLCs) as a vehicle for school reform. Despite the considerable documentation of the capability for TLCs to influence teaching and learning, TLCs are not the norm in American schools. The development of advanced levels of TLCs is dependent, in part, on the presence of certain school leadership, professional development, and workplace design conditions. This study examines how school leaders and teachers conceptualize TLCs, how they identify and alter supportive conditions, and how those altered conditions influence the development of TLCs. The researcher conducted a single case study incorporating a practitioner inquiry stance with his own school where he served as an assistant principal. The study traced the influence of conditions altered by school leaders to two embedded subunits: the Math and World Language TLCs. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five school leader participants, focus group interviews with the two TLCs, observations, and document analysis. Participants identified six characteristics of TLCs capable of accomplishing goals: trusting relationships, common purpose, reflexive dialogue, collaborative activity, data-driven decisions, and agency. School leaders identified and altered 12 supportive conditions. Of those 12, participants reported that nine influenced their work and the development of their TLCs from traditional teacher teams to novice and intermediate professional communities. Although compatible with scholars' descriptions of TLCs, participants' descriptions represented an emerging/novice perspective suggesting a dynamic TLC conceptualization. Three of the six characteristics that participants' identify are precursors to other scholar's conceptualizations. These TLCs could reach advanced levels without developing shared values, deprivatizing practice, and focusing on student learning. The study's findings also suggest that school leaders seeking to foster TLCs provide time embedded into the teachers' regular workday and identify someone to serve as a resource/power broker to help teachers negotiate power relationships. By addressing their emerging/novice perspective and continuing to alter additional conditions, school leaders may influence the development of TLCs, eventually reducing teacher workload and improving teaching and learning

Report Earnings Accurately

As authors of the March article, “Is Managing Earnings Ethically Acceptable?,” we wish to thank Alfred M. King for his letter in the April issue questioning some of the contentions in our article. In a time when corruption seems to be rampant in many aspects of our national life, it is important for accountants to discuss openly what are their ethical responsibilities, and what are the limits to those responsibilities. The credibility of accounting numbers is vital to our success as a profession and as individual accountants. There will be no demand for accounting service if accounting information is not trusted by users. Accountants have incorporated into their ethical codes the obligation to present information fairly and in an undistorted manner. Mr. King must have misunderstood our definition of earnings management As we stated, earnings management includes the actions of a manager that serve to change current reported earnings without generating a corresponding change in the long-run economic profitability of the unit. Managers who change earnings in this way are trying to influence positively the perceptions of their unit by users of the earnings numbers when there have not been any changes in the operation of that unit to warrant it. This is manipulative and unethical. How can anyone question this? Mr. King seems especially concerned about whether earnings management can come about through operating decisions. For example, how can the selling of excess assets be bad? We do not question whether it is good or bad to sell off excess assets; we question the timing of that decision by management during periods when earnings need to be enhanced or reduced. When the timing of the operating transaction is selected to influence earnings rather than for valid operational reasons, the earnings are distorted and users\u27 interests may be damaged. (Download for full text of letter.

Earnings Manipulation: A report by Robert LaVine on the business ethics research of Kenneth Rosenzweig and Marilyn Fischer

This column by Robert LaVine in the Chartered Accountants Journal of New Zealand reports on the research of University of Dayton professors Kenneth Rosenzweig and Marilyn Fischer, Is Managing Earnings Ethically Acceptable? Surveys Show Age and Seniority Affect Attitudes on Earnings Management, \u3e\u3e\u3e published in the journal Management Accounting

Is Managing Earnings Ethically Acceptable? Surveys Show Age and Seniority Affect Attitudes on Earnings Management

Is managing earnings through accounting methods ethically acceptable? That\u27s the question we recently asked a sample group of management accountants. The response to the survey was enlightening. Our survey was designed as a follow-up and extension of the research done by Bruns and Merchant and published in Management Accounting in August 1990. They found that managers disagreed considerably on whether earnings management is ethically acceptable. They also found that in general the respondents thought manipulating earnings via operating decisions was more ethically acceptable than manipulation by accounting methods. Bruns and Merchant were disturbed by these findings. They were concerned that these practices could be misleading to users of the information and, over time, reduce the credibility of accounting numbers and thereby damage the reputation of the accounting profession. Bruns and Merchant surveyed managers, but accountants as well can influence the level of reported earnings either directly by means of their impact on the choice of accounting methods or indirectly by monitoring the actions of managers who influence reported earnings. To learn more about accountants\u27 attitudes toward earnings management, we surveyed 265 members of a regional organization of accountants (approximately 38% of the total membership). Our questionnaire was adapted from the one used by Bruns and Merchant and included 13 descriptions of managerial actions. The accountants were asked to rate these actions on a 5-point scale from “ethical” to “totally unethical.” (See “Earnings Management Questions.”) For the purpose of this study, we define earnings management in terms of the actions of a manager that are intended to increase (decrease) current reported earnings of the unit for which the manager is responsible without generating a corresponding increase (decrease) in the long-term economic profitability of the unit. Our definition is consistent with the way Bruns and Merchant used the term, although there is no standard, widely accepted definition of earnings management

Contact lens phorias and spectacle lens phorias : a comparative study

Contact lens phorias and spectacle lens phorias : a comparative stud

The role of symmetry in driven propulsion at low Reynolds number

We theoretically and experimentally investigate low-Reynolds-number propulsion of geometrically achiral planar objects that possess a dipole moment and that are driven by a rotating magnetic field. Symmetry considerations (involving parity, $\widehat{P}$, and charge conjugation, $\widehat{C}$) establish correspondence between propulsive states depending on orientation of the dipolar moment. Although basic symmetry arguments do not forbid individual symmetric objects to efficiently propel due to spontaneous symmetry breaking, they suggest that the average ensemble velocity vanishes. Some additional arguments show, however, that highly symmetrical ($\widehat{P}$-even) objects exhibit no net propulsion while individual less symmetrical ($\widehat{C}\widehat{P}$-even) propellers do propel. Particular magnetization orientation, rendering the shape $\widehat{C}\widehat{P}$-odd, yields unidirectional motion typically associated with chiral structures, such as helices. If instead of a structure with a permanent dipole we consider a polarizable object, some of the arguments have to be modified. For instance, we demonstrate a truly achiral ($\widehat{P}$- and $\widehat{C}\widehat{P}$-even) planar shape with an induced electric dipole that can propel by electro-rotation. We thereby show that chirality is not essential for propulsion due to rotation-translation coupling at low Reynolds number.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure