PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS - ART, SCIENCE, OR MAGIC: Defining criteria for testing IS Project Ideas

It seems inevitable that sometimes projects will fail. Project management and project management methodologies exist to improve the likelihood of success, but delivering change in a dynamic environment is not without risk. Research says that a significant number of projects fail, particularly in information systems. It is recognised here that poor project management and/or methodology may not be the only causes when failure occurs. Areas outside the project control and even before project initiation could also be at fault, especially if it is based on a flawed concept. Is it possible that this may be the result of poor root cause analysis and an incorrect diagnosis of what the organisation needs to change? This goes beyond the requirements analysis, to the very beginning to the idea. In addition to the art of the project manager and the science of the project management methodology then, there is a third factor that should be recognised and analysed; the “magic” of the methodology used to generate the magic of the initial idea. Project management methodologies codify what is known about how to run a project; they provide governance and procedure. Talented project managers manage delivery of the plan whilst managing the attendant risks and issues. But the process seen as project management does not extend to include validation of the methodology applied to the idea behind the project. This paper speculates that the capability of the idea, measured in the rigour applied to the root cause analysis and the derivation of appropriate fix logic (the project mandate), is what needs to be tested by the application of a pre-project methodology

Market Reform in New Jersey and Quality of Care: A Cautionary Tale

As more than 40 states face present and projected deficits in their health care budgets, some legislatures are considering market-based reforms to control rising health care costs. This continues a trend begun in the 1990s that emphasized market competition over state regulation and mandates. However, little is known about the impact of many market-based reforms on quality of care. This Issue Brief evaluates the effect of one reform—the deregulation of hospital reimbursement rates in New Jersey—on one important outcome of care—mortality from acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). The findings serve as a reminder that cost-constraining reforms may reduce the quality of care, particularly for uninsured and other vulnerable populations

How reliable are knee kinematics and kinetics during side-cutting manoeuvres?

INTRODUCTION: Side-cutting tasks are commonly used in dynamic assessment of ACL injury risk, but only limited information is available concerning the reliability of knee loading parameters. The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability of side-cutting data with additional focus on modelling approaches and task execution variables. METHODS: Each subject (n=8) attended six testing sessions conducted by two observers. Kinematic and kinetic data of 45° side-cutting tasks was collected. Inter-trial, inter-session, inter-observer variability and observer/trial ratios were calculated at every time-point of normalised stance, for data derived from two modelling approaches. Variation in task execution variables was regressed against that of temporal profiles of relevant knee data using one-dimensional statistical parametric mapping. RESULTS: Variability in knee kinematics was consistently low across the time-series waveform (≤5°), but knee kinetic variability was high (31.8, 24.1 and 16.9Nm for sagittal, frontal and transverse planes, respectively) in the weight acceptance phase of the side-cutting task. Calculations conveyed consistently moderate-to-good measurement reliability. Inverse kinematic modelling reduced the variability in sagittal (∼6Nm) and frontal planes (∼10Nm) compared to direct kinematic modelling. Variation in task execution variables did not explain any knee data variability. CONCLUSION: Side-cutting data appears to be reliably measured, however high knee moment variability exhibited in all planes, particularly in the early stance phase, suggests cautious interpretation towards ACL injury mechanics. Such variability may be inherent to the dynamic nature of the side-cutting task or experimental issues not yet known

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements