347 research outputs found
Languaging at Work: The Language Socialization of Support Staff in the Healthcare Workforce
This thesis presents findings from an ethnographic study of adult English Language Learners (ELLs) who are support staff employees in a large metropolitan hospital and are taking integrated English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at their work site. This research is rooted in a theoretical framework that intersects studies on discourse (Fairclough, 1995; Gee, 2008), language socialization (Burdelski & Cook, 2012; Flowerdew, 2013; Vickers, 2007), and agency and identity development (Norton, 1997, 2006, 2010; van Lier, 2008) to discuss the experience of adult ELLs who enter an English-dominant healthcare workplace. The teacher-researcher used ethnographic methods to examine: (a) the support staff employee discourse as determined by language and behaviors; (b) the impact of the workplace ESL classes on socializing employees into this discourse; (c) how support staff employees develop agency and second-language identities in their work environment. Data included field notes from work observations of six support staff employees from three departments—Housekeeping, Food Service, and Patient Care Services—all of whom participate in the ESL classes, and audio-recorded interviews with these six employees and three support staff supervisors. Relevant literature in the fields of workplace education and language socialization at work is reviewed and discussed. A description of the hospital’s support staff discourse is described in the findings, along with areas of language socialization that are developed by participating in workplace ESL classes and how this leads to increased agency and identity development at work. Data analysis exhibits that learning English through an integrated workplace education program provides employees a community of practice in which to develop the language skills and confidence they need to advocate for themselves and others at work. By qualitatively examining how healthcare support staff can be better incorporated into the workplace and develop professionally, this study has implications for training and education programs for a growing immigrant healthcare worker population
141. Der Zellenbau der Grosshirnrinde des Affen (Macacus Cynomolgus) The Cells of the Cortex of the Monkey (Macacus Cynomolgus):
n/
Substitution Effects in Supply Chains with Asymmetric Information Distribution and Upstream Competition
Inventory management in markets with substituting customers is extremely challenging,
not only for a downstream wholesaler, but also for upstream manufacturers.
Motivated by the structures in the agrochemical market, we analyze the optimal production
and stocking quantities of a manufacturer and a wholesaler, respectively, in
a two-stage supply chain with upstream competition and vertical information asymmetries.
We characterize a monopolistic wholesaler's optimal stocking quantities and
show that these quantities are not necessarily monotonic, neither in the available
production quantities nor in the customers' substitution rates. We further derive
the optimal production quantities of a monopolistic and a competitive manufacturer
when they are incompletely informed about the wholesaler's stocking quantities. We
find that the introduction of competition may lead to decreasing production quantities
for some products. Furthermore, a product's end-of-season inventories at the
manufacturer which arise due to information asymmetries may decrease even when
initial production levels increase.
Key words: customer substitution; supply chain; asymmetric information; competition;
inventory managemen
Sourcing innovation: Public and private feedback in contests
Contests, in which contestants compete for a prize offered by a contest holder, have become a popular way to source innovation. Despite great interest from the academic community, many important managerial aspects of contests have received very little formal inquiry. The most important of these is feedback from the contest holder to the contestants while the contest unfolds. This paper sets out to establish a comprehensive understanding of how to give feedback in a contest by answering the questions of when to give feedback and when not to give feedback and which type of feedback to give, public (which all solvers can observe) or private (which only the concerned party can observe). We find that feedback will not affect the behavior of competing problem solvers unless the contest holder credibly precommits to a truthful feedback policy. We then set up a framework that reduces the feedback decision to a pair of conceptual questions. First: Is the contest's ultimate objective to increase average quality or to find the best solution? Second: How uncertain are outcomes for the solvers? We show that no feedback or public feedback generally dominate private feedback. However, if the host is interested exclusively in the best performance and if the contest displays large uncertainties, private feedback is optimal
Resource allocation decisions under imperfect evaluation and organizational dynamics
Research and development (R&D) projects face significant organizational challenges, especially when the different units who run these projects compete among each other for resources. In such cases, information sharing among the different units is critical, but it cannot be taken for granted. Instead, individual units need to be incentivized to not only exert effort in evaluating their projects, but also to truthfully reveal their findings. The former requires an emphasis on individual performance, whereas the latter relies on the existence of a common goal across the organization. Motivated by this commonly observed tension, we address the following question: How should a firm balance individual and shared incentives, so that vital information is both acquired, and equally importantly, disseminated to the entire organization? Our model captures two key characteristics of R&D experimentation: information is imperfect and it is also costly. Our analysis yields several important implications for the design of such incentive schemes and the management of R&D portfolios
Modelling fertiliser use in the Glenelg Hopkins catchment
The improvement of water quality in the streams of the Glenelg Hopkins catchment is a priority of the Glenelg Hopkins regional strategy. A major source of water pollution in the region is linked to agricultural activities as high nutrient levels from runoff have the potential to increase the incidence of blue-green algae in the waterways. Land use change, reduced rainfall, more frequent extreme rainfall events and higher temperatures associated with climate change are likely to exacerbate this trend. Water testing data of the Total Phosphorus (TP) levels in the Hopkins River and at other sites within the Hopkins Catchment indicate increasing incidence of TP above the Environment Protection Authority's target levels for extended periods of each year. Earlier research indicated that phosphorus in runoff increases when pasture fertility increases and that fertiliser management practices should be considered as an element of preventative action for reducing nutrient pollution. During our research, a survey was undertaken in the Hopkins River catchment, to determine the current management of phosphorus (P) fertilisers on grazing and mixed enterprise farms, the attitude of farmers to natural resource management and their understanding of nutrient pollution. The survey also gathered information on the way farmers made fertiliser management decisions. If cooperation relating to phosphorus fertiliser application could be facilitated between groups of farmers, it may be possible to reduce nutrient runoff into the Hopkins waterways. Cooperative game theory has successfully been used worldwide in the resolution of environmental problems where there is an economic impact to the decision making process. In this project, the amount of phosphorus applied per hectare was used in a cooperative game theory model assessing the potential for cooperative action on phosphorus management by groups of farmers, based on the trade off between the economic cost of pollution to the region waterways and the economic production benefits to the individual. The outcome of this work was individual optimal strategies for fertiliser application, allowing individual farmers to reduce their impact of agricultural production on the health of the catchment. Involving the farmer groups, while undertaking the project, raised awareness amongst the farming population of the regional nutrient pollution caused by runoff from agricultural land, and enlisted their assistance towards adopting a cooperative approach to the problem. In addition, the results have been mapped using a Geographical Information System (GIS) for visual presentation and to demonstrate the use of this process in natural resource management with the farmer groups
Narrativa sobre uma professora leiga, através da memória de seus ex-alunos, contribuição para a história local.
Este artigo tem como objetivo apresentar um delineamento sobre a pesquisa biográfica da trajetória de vida de uma professora leiga[1], que viveu em uma cidade interiorana no Nordeste brasileiro. Tendo o enfoque da fundação o entre as décadas de 1920 e 1930, o Educandário Santo Antônio, de propriedade da pesquisada e que ficou em atividade até a década de 1980, na cidade de Cachoeira/BA. A metodologia utilizada foi a História Oral, através da realização de entrevistas concedidas, entre 2015 e 2016, por ex-alunos da professora. Essas narrativas serviram como inspiração para juntar as histórias sobre a vida e as práticas educacionais utilizadas no decorrer da vida da professora em questão. Como também utilizamos, além das entrevistas, outras fontes como documentos dos arquivos familiares da professora e dos ex-alunos documentos oficiais e a legislação do perÃodo. As literaturas utilizadas para embasar este estudo foram: BASTOS (2003),, bem como, copilado do Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (TCC) de minha autoria em 2017. No decorrer das narrativas sobre a história de vida e docente, podemos compreender a metodologia da professora leiga, possibilitando compreender sua trajetória profissional ao longo de sua vida. Evidenciamos através dessas narrativas, a mulher que mesmo diante das particularidades de um perÃodo patriarcal, ousou em ser independente, na cidade efervescente e interiorana de Cachoeira, no Recôncavo da Bahia. [1] Na Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional – LDB 4024/1961– Define no Art. 57. A formação de professores, orientadores e supervisores para as escolas rurais primárias poderá ser feita em estabelecimentos que lhes prescrevem a integração no meio. Um professor leigo é aquele que não tem formação especÃfica para atuar na sua área, ou seja, sem o Magistério.
 
Innovative products and their impact on operations
Operations is the part of an organization that is responsible for creating and/or delivering
the organization's products and services (Slack and Lewis 2015, p. 2). To accomplish
this task, operations has to oversee and improve a large variety of different processes that
span the entire value chain; including the design, procurement, production, delivery, and
recovery of the products and services sold. It is beyond dispute that managing all these
processes is a complex and challenging endeavor, and that any form of mismanagement
may result in adverse outcomes that have a detrimental impact on the organization's
profits. Yet, even though the coordination of all the different functions that operations
is concerned with is by itself already an intricate mission, there is one feature of many
real-life scenarios that substantially complicates operations management: the presence
of uncertainties
- …