A Risk-focused Performance Management System Framework for Planning Change in Organisations: New Zealand 'Gentailers' and the ETS

In 2007 the New Zealand government in principle adopted the implementation of a cap and trade emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the energy sector from 2010. The objective of this paper is to develop a risk-focused performance management system (PMS) planning framework for organisations undergoing externally-driven regulatory change that constrains their operating environment and increases business and operating risk exposure. This paper focuses on the New Zealand electricity generators and retailers (gentailers). It utilises contingency theory and secondary data to explain PMS change implications due to the altered business risk exposure potential of the proposed emissions trading regime and the associated carbon constraints this regulatory change imposes on these organisations' operating environment. The risk-focused PMS planning framework developed in this study allowed the identification of the drivers and attributes that due to the ETS adoption potentially have significant negative business risk impacts for some gentailers. The findings arising from the application of this risk-focused PMS framework to the New Zealand electricity gentailers suggest that the predominantly thermal-based generators will be more disadvantaged due to a reduction in competitiveness and profitability. This reduction is the result of the interaction between the ETS-related risks and the sources and types of external and internal environmental uncertainty associated with the regulatory change. The business risks identified not only influence organisational-level PMS design function and operation needs but also have economic consequences at sectoral and national levels particularly in relation to national security of electricity supply. The paper provides insights into an organisation's potential internal adjustments in response to increases in internal and external business risks due to the introduction of the ETS and changing wider environmental management expectations. Theory implications relate to the role and use of risk in improving the application of contingency theory in explaining organisational change under environmental pressures. Additionally the paper contributes to the management accounting research through the examination of the internalisation of externalities such as wider climate change management. Consequently the findings of this study will be of potential interest to academics managers accountants other professionals governments and policy-makers

Accounting For The Organisation's Internal Environment And Risk: costing and control

In the changing and sometimes volatile world in which organisations operate and do business, management accounting and management accountants are responsible for the costing, control, and performance information that support management decision-making; the optimising of organisational performance; and the managing of business risk exposure. The strategic choices of these organisations determine the sources and types of relationships that organisations will engage in, both within their internal operating environments and their external business environments. Organisations have a greater capacity to control their internal operating relationships (whether these are organisation to people, people to people, people to physical assets, or physical assets to physical assets) than they do their external business relationships, which have different sources and types of uncertainty and risk. In this book, the focus is on the internal operating environment of the organisation. It looks at how management accounting tools, techniques, and frameworks assist management accountants to identify the information and reporting needs of management for managing and treating various sources and types of internal operating uncertainty and risk, so as to optimise organisation performance

Discursive Tactical Negotiations within and across Literacy Coaching Interactions

In this dissertation, the researcher employed de Certeau\u27s theoretical insights into cultural production in everyday life to examine how literacy coaches and teachers discursively negotiated issues of identity, power, and positioning during coaching interactions. The study also explored how literacy coaches and teachers enacted emotions within these discursive negotiations of identity, power, and positioning; and how physical, social, and ideological spaces were shaped by and reflected in coaching interactions. Data were generated during a yearlong qualitative study of literacy coaches and teachers interacting within a mid-size, suburban district in the U.S. Midwest. The researcher used a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis to closely examine brief, video-recorded interactions between coaches and teachers. Other data sources included semi-structured interviews, field observations, and artifact collection. Findings demonstrate how dominant Discourses of best practices, teacher development, collaboration, and coaches\u27 credibility were simultaneously reproduced, resisted, and appropriated within the coaching interactions. Coaches and teachers interacted within conditions of vulnerability as they attempted to maintain identities as good coaches and teachers and negotiated understandings of what professional learning means, what counts as relevant knowledge for instructional decision making, and who decides. These findings should encourage coaches and teachers, as well as administrators and educational policy makers, to acknowledge the multiplicities, uncertainties, and ambiguities of professional development and to incorporate less dominant ways of knowing and being into professional learning communities

A Study of Expert Systems Using AURA

Many computational biologists would agree that, had it not been for random modalities, the deployment of online algorithms might never have occurred [19]. In this work, we demonstrate the understanding of the producer-consumer problem, which embodies the natural princi- ples of artificial intelligence. In order to achieve this aim, we use atomic configurations to validate that IPv4 can be made electronic, lossless, and low-energy

A Risk-focused Performance Management System Framework for Planning Change in Organisations: New Zealand 'Gentailers' and the ETS

In 2007 the New Zealand government in principle adopted the implementation of a cap and trade emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the energy sector from 2010. The objective of this paper is to develop a risk-focused performance management system (PMS) planning framework for organisations undergoing externally-driven regulatory change that constrains their operating environment and increases business and operating risk exposure. This paper focuses on the New Zealand electricity generators and retailers (gentailers). It utilises contingency theory and secondary data to explain PMS change implications due to the altered business risk exposure potential of the proposed emissions trading regime and the associated carbon constraints this regulatory change imposes on these organisations' operating environment. The risk-focused PMS planning framework developed in this study allowed the identification of the drivers and attributes that due to the ETS adoption potentially have significant negative business risk impacts for some gentailers. The findings arising from the application of this risk-focused PMS framework to the New Zealand electricity gentailers suggest that the predominantly thermal-based generators will be more disadvantaged due to a reduction in competitiveness and profitability. This reduction is the result of the interaction between the ETS-related risks and the sources and types of external and internal environmental uncertainty associated with the regulatory change. The business risks identified not only influence organisational-level PMS design function and operation needs but also have economic consequences at sectoral and national levels particularly in relation to national security of electricity supply. The paper provides insights into an organisation's potential internal adjustments in response to increases in internal and external business risks due to the introduction of the ETS and changing wider environmental management expectations. Theory implications relate to the role and use of risk in improving the application of contingency theory in explaining organisational change under environmental pressures. Additionally the paper contributes to the management accounting research through the examination of the internalisation of externalities such as wider climate change management. Consequently the findings of this study will be of potential interest to academics managers accountants other professionals governments and policy-makers

Whole body vibration exposure on markers of bone turnover, body composition, and physical functioning in breast cancer patients receiving aromatase inhibitor therapy: A randomized controlled trial

Introduction: Women with breast cancer are often prescribed aromatase inhibitors, which can cause rapid loss of bone mass leading to significant potential for morbidity. Vibration training has been shown to be helpful in reducing bone turnover in postmenopausal women without cancer. Aim: To examine the effect of vibration stimulus on markers of bone turnover in breast cancer patients receiving aromatase inhibitors. Methods: Thirty-one breast cancer survivors undergoing treatment with aromatase inhibitors were randomized to vibration stimulus (n = 14) or usual care control (n = 17). Low-frequency and low-magnitude vibration stimulus (27-32 Hz, 0.3g) was delivered in supervised sessions via standing on a vibration platform for 20 minutes, 3 times per week for 12 weeks. The primary outcome was blood markers of bone resorption (serum N-telopeptide X/creatine) and formation (serum type 1 procollagen N-terminal propeptide; P1NP). Other study outcomes body composition as well as measures of physical functioning. Outcomes were compared between groups using analysis of covariance adjusted for baseline values as well as time on aromatase inhibitors. Outcomes: On average, participants were 61.5 years old and overweight (ie, body mass index = 28.5 kg/m2). Following vibration training, there was no significant difference between groups for bone resorption (adjusted group difference 0.5, P = .929) or formation (adjusted group difference 5.3, P = .286). There were also no changes in any measure of physical functioning body composition. Conclusions: Short-term low-magnitude vibration stimulus does not appear to be useful for reducing markers of bone turnover secondary to aromatase inhibitors in breast cancer patients; nor is it useful in improving physical function or symptoms. However, further investigations with larger samples and higher doses of vibration are warranted. Trial Registration: Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12611001094965)

The Ursinus Weekly, October 1, 1956

Fall Y retreat to be held at Fernbrook, Oct. 12-14 • Men\u27s council has opening session • Two new teachers join UC faculty • Deltas, Phi Psi give opening social affair • Pre-med society to have meeting on Oct. 9 • Class of 1960 arrives on campus • UC music groups plan Fall program • Curtain Club makes plans for frosh reception • APO invites interested students to first meeting • Sophs after frosh as customs begin • Philadelphia Orchestra releases schedule • Chemical society to hold meeting Oct. 8 • Forum, Oct. 10, to feature debate on candidates • WSGA to discuss two frosh affairs • Editorial: Das Wiedersehen • Senior and frosh: A comparison • How\u27s that, again? • Alpha Sig holds banquet • It went that a way • Ursinus Chess Club to hold first meeting Tuesday • Book review: Two flights by Lindbergh • Confident Bruin booters await opener with Drew U., Oct. 10th • Belles boast vets; Open with G\u27burg • Thirteen veterans return; Bruins upset in Susquehanna opener 26-13 • Art museum opens porcelain exhibithttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1411/thumbnail.jp

Successes, challenges and lessons learned: Community-engaged research with South Carolina's Gullah population

Engaging communities is highly recommended in the conduct of health research among vulnerable populations. The strength of community-engaged research is well documented and is recognised as a useful approach for eliminating health disparities and improving health equity. In this article, five interdisciplinary teams from the Medical University of South Carolina present their involvement with community-engaged research with a unique population of Gullah African Americans residing in rural South Carolina. Their work has been integrated with the nine established principles of community-engaged research: establishing clear goals, becoming knowledgeable about the community, establishing relationships, developing community self-determination, partnering with the community, maintaining respect, mobilising community assets, releasing control, and maintaining community collaboration. In partnership with a Citizen Advisory Committee, developed at the inception of the first community-engaged research project, the academic researchers have been able to build on relationships and trust with this population to sustain partnerships and to meet major research objectives over a 20-year period. Challenges observed include structural inequality, organisational and cultural issues, and lack of resources for building sustainable research infrastructure. Lessons learned during this process include the necessity for clearly articulated and shared goals, knowledge about the community culture, and embedding the cultural context within research approaches. Keywords: Engaged health research, vulnerable populations, longterm collaboration, South Carolina 'Gullah' communitie