The preemptive repeat hybrid server interruption model

We analyze a discrete-time queueing system with server interruptions and a hybrid preemptive repeat interruption discipline. Such a discipline encapsulates both the preemptive repeat identical and the preemptive repeat different disciplines. By the introduction and analysis of so-called service completion times, we significantly reduce the complexity of the analysis. Our results include a.o. the probability generating functions and moments of queue content and delay. Finally, by means of some numerical examples, we assess how performance measures are affected by the specifics of the interruption discipline

Building the capacity to solve complex health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa : CARTA’s multidisciplinary PhD training

Objectives: To develop a curriculum (Joint Advanced Seminars- JAS) that produced PhD fellows who understood that health is an outcome of multiple determinants within complex environments and that approaches from a range of disciplines is required to address health and development within the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa. We sought to attract PhD fellows, supervisors and teaching faculty from a range of disciplines into the program. Methods: Multidisciplinary teams developed the JAS curriculum. CARTA PhD fellowships were open to academics in consortium member institutions, irrespective of primary discipline, interested in doing a PhD in public and population health. Supervisors and JAS faculty were recruited from CARTA institutions. We use routine JAS evaluation data (closed and open ended questions) collected from PhD fellows at every JAS, a survey of one CARTA cohort and an external evaluation of CARTA to assess the impact of the JAS curriculum on learning. Results: We describe our pedagogic approach arguing its centrality to an appreciation of multiple disciplines and illustrate how it promotes working in multidisciplinary ways. CARTA has attracted PhD fellows, supervisors and JAS teaching faculty from across a range of disciplines. Evaluations indicate PhD fellows have a greater appreciation of how disciplines other than their own are important to understand health and its determinants and an appreciation and capacity to employ mixed methods research. Conclusions: In the short-term, we have been effective in promoting an understanding of multidisciplinarity resulting in fellows using methods from beyond their discipline of origin. This curriculum has international application

The political economy of international accounting standards

On 1 January 2005, all stock exchange listed companies in the European Union (EU) began using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) written by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). This article argues that the IASB's introduction of fair value accounting reflects and reinforces changed relations of production in which the financial sector increasingly dominates the productive sector, nationally institutionalized economic systems are undermined, and new forms of economic appropriation are validated. As a private body, the IASB has been able to rapidly introduce the fair value paradigm with little public debate outside specialized financial circles. In contrast to more functionalist views, this article argues that accounting standards are inherently political. Accounting numbers provide some of the key economic anchors around which social relations are structured. Accounting techniques cannot be reduced to questions of efficiency since they set out to quantify and compare things which, by their very nature, are neither quantifiable nor directly comparable. © 2006 Taylor & Francis

Gauging the transdisciplinary qualities and outcomes of doctoral training programs

A key assumption underlying recent investments toward establishing transdisciplinary research centers and training programs is that cross-disciplinary research and training provide a stronger basis for achieving scientific and societal advances than unidisciplinary programs. It is necessary to develop reproducible and reliable criteria for identifying the distinctive qualities of cross-disciplinary research and training programs, especially in the field of urban and regional planning. The current study provides an exploratory first step toward that goal. A composite scale designed to measure the transdisciplinary qualities of doctoral dissertations as an important product of one's intellectual development and graduate training was constructed and administered in the present study. Dissertations completed over a twenty-five-year period by Ph.D. candidates within an interdisciplinary doctoral training program were rated by two independent reviewers across multiple dimensions of transdisciplinary integration and scope. Departmental as well as gender differences were found on several dimensions of transdisciplinarity. © 2005 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning