UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM – INNOVATION IN THE WELFARE SECTOR THROUGH ACTION DESIGN RESEARCH

Action design research (ADR) is a method to produce knowledge and solve real-world problems through the design of innovative IT/IS artifacts. The starting point for all design science research projects is the identification of a significant problem. However, ADR does not provide detailed guidance in the early stages of the problem formulation. This makes the initial problem formulation process challenging, especially when innovating new artifacts in complex settings. The paper contributes to this discussion by exploring how the Work Systems (WS) snapshot can be used as a tool for identifying and understanding a problem domain. The study leans on a project that focuses on the welfare sector and the transition from school to employment for persons with intellectual disability. We show that the WS snapshot can provide guidance and structure in conceptualizing the problem and that user journeys can assist in communicating the findings to practitioners. However, we encountered challenges relating to the scope and the granularity of the work system. In addition, the complexity of the welfare sector demands that significant time is spend on understanding not only the problem domain itself, but also the surrounding settings

EUV Sunspot Plumes Observed with SOHO

Bright EUV sunspot plumes have been observed in five out of nine sunspot regions with the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer -- CDS on SOHO. In the other four regions the brightest line emissions may appear inside the sunspot but are mainly concentrated in small regions outside the sunspot areas. These results are in contrast to those obtained during the Solar Maximum Mission, but are compatible with the Skylab mission results. The present observations show that sunspot plumes are formed in the upper part of the transition region, occur both in magnetic unipolar-- and bipolar regions, and may extend from the umbra into the penumbra.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to be published in ApJ Letter

Neurological manifestaions among Sudanese patients with multiple myeloma

Background: Multiple myeloma may involve the nervous system at every level, including the neuromuscular junction, peripheral nerve, plexus, spinal nerve root, spinal cord, meninges, and brain. Such involvement may be primary or secondary, as well as non-invasive paraneoplastic effects.Objective: To find out the perevalence and pattern of CNS manifestations in Sudanese patients with multiple myeloma seen in Al-Shaab Teaching Hospital and Khartoum Nuclear Hospital.Methodology: This is a prospective descriptive cross sectional, hospital based study. It was conducted in Al-Shaab Teaching Hospital and Khartoum Nuclear Hospital in the period from June2009 to June 2010. 50 patients with multiple myeloma were included in the study.Results: Males were more than females with ratio of 2.8:1. The common (36%) age of presentation was between 55-64 years. There was increased incidence of multiple myeloma in patients from the west of Sudan. Farmers and free workers had high incidence of multiple myeloma (34% and 27%respectively). The study demonstrated that the most common non-  neurological symptoms was locomotor symptoms (24%) ,while the most common neurological symptoms were backache and neck pain .The most common neurological findings were cord compression (8%) followed by peripheral neuropathy (2%) and CVA (2%). 22% of patients completed treatment with good response, 12% with partial response, 18% with no response and 48% are still on treatment.Conclusion: CNS involvement among our studied group was not  uncommon.Keywords: neuromuscular, paraneoplastic, monoclonal immunoglobulin

Perturbative description of nuclear double beta decay transitions

A consistent treatment of intrinsic and collective coordinates is applied to the calculation of matrix elements describing nuclear double beta decay transitions. The method, which was developed for the case of nuclear rotations, is adapted to include isospin and number of particles degrees of freedom. It is shown that the uncertainties found in most models, in dealing with these decay modes, are largely due to the mixing of physical and spurious effects in the treatment of isospin dependent interactions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, RevTe

Juncus Bulbosus Tissue Nutrient Concentrations and Stoichiometry in Oligotrophic Ecosystems: Variability with Seasons, Growth Forms, Organs and Habitats

Aquatic plant nutrient concentrations provide important information to characterise their role in nutrient retention and turnover in aquatic ecosystems. While large standing biomass of aquatic plants is typically found in nutrient-rich localities, it may also occur in oligotrophic ecosystems. Juncus bulbosus is able to form massive stands even in very nutrient-dilute waters. Here we show that this may be achieved by tissues with very high carbon-to-nutrient ratios combined with perennial (slow) growth and a poor food source for grazers inferred from plant stoichiometry and tissue nutrient thresholds. We also show that the C, N, P and C:N:P stoichiometric ratios of Juncus bulbosus vary with the time of year, habitats (lakes versus rivers) and organs (roots versus shoots). We found no differences between growth forms (notably in P, inferred as the most limiting nutrient) corresponding to small and large plant stands. The mass development of J. bulbosus requires C, N and P, whatever the ecosystem (lake or river), and not just CO2 and NH4, as suggested in previous studies. Since macrophytes inhabiting oligotrophic aquatic ecosystems are dominated by isoetids (perennial plants with a high root/shoot ratio), attention should be paid to quantifying the role of roots in aquatic plant stoichiometry, nutrient turnover and nutrient retention.publishedVersio

Double beta decay of 100Mo^{100}Mo: the deformed limit

The double beta decay of $^{100}Mo$ to the ground state and excited states of $^{100}Ru$ is analysed in the context of the pseudo SU(3) scheme. The results of this deformed limit are compared with the vibrational one based on the QRPA formalism. Consistency between the deformed limit and the experimental information is found for various $\beta\beta$ transitions, although, in this approximation some energies and B(E2) intensities cannot reproduced.Comment: 16 pages, revtex, no figures. Submmitted to Phys. Rev.

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay in Heavy Deformed Nuclei

The zero neutrino mode of the double beta decay in heavy deformed nuclei is investigated in the framework of the pseudo SU(3) model, which has provided an accurate description of collective nuclear structure and predicted half-lives for the two neutrino mode in good agreement with experiments. In the case of $^{238}U$ the calculated zero neutrino half-life is at least three orders of magnitude greater than the two neutrino one, giving strong support of the identification of the radiochemically determined half-life as being the two neutrino double beta decay. For $^{150}Nd$ the zero neutrino matrix elements are of the order of magnitude of, but lesser than, those evaluated using the QRPA. This result confirms that different nuclear models produce similar zero neutrino matrix elements, contrary to the two neutrino case. Using these pseudo SU(3) results and the upper limit for the neutrino mass we estimate the $\beta\beta_{0\nu}$ half-lives for six nuclei. An upper limit for majoron coupling constant is extracted from the experimental data.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures not included, availables as poscript files upon reques