Globalisability of Universalisability? How to apply the Generality Principle and Constitutionalism internationally

Our aim is to address some elementary aspects of the innate trade-off between both classical liberal requirements for an adequate order of rules: (a) effectiveness in the sense of the rules' congruence with a given order of (economic) actions and (b) legitimacy in the sense of the rules? congruence with the given social-cultural conditions of (political) consent. In the following part 2, we review Hayek's own account of the requirements of a liberal international order of rules, finding several arguments that help to further illustrate the above-mentioned trade-off. But we will hardly find Hayek relate his legal and political philosophy of "universalisability" to assessments of international governance. Therefore, we have to go back to Hayek's accounts of universalisable rules of just conduct in part 3 in order to prepare our account of such rules' globalisability. In part 4 we address the generality norm as a constitutional principle for the governance structure of an international order. Both general, proscriptive rules and specific, prescriptive regulations of the international order are contrasted in part 5, as we find them today both on the level of WTO and of EU rules and regulations. Part 6 offers a summary conclusion of our empirical and normative-theoretical observations. We cannot endeavour here to discuss all major elements of existing international law or of an ideal global "constitution of liberty". In fact, we will only occasionally be more explicit about material contents of the rules of the game. This is not only because such a task would be beyond the scope of a single paper. It is also because we like to focus our attention on formal principles that should, in our view, inform any (re-) construction of international governance. --

The Development and Adoption of an Innovative, Sustainable Quality Improvement Model in a Private Healthcare Firm

Currently, UK healthcare is encountering an unprecedented quality crisis, especially considering the overwhelming challenge of improving patient care in the face of growing demands and limited resources. Although past efforts to adopt Total Quality Management (TQM) initiatives have failed to produce desired results, this thesis investigates the limitations of TQM applicability and explores the development of an innovative Quality Improvement model germane to a healthcare context. By integrating TQM with concepts from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Complexity Theory (CT) and Knowledge Management (KM) a novel TQM conceptual framework, called EALIM—Ethical, Adaptive, Learning and Improvement Model—was devised. Using an Action Research (AR) study, EALIM was implemented within a private healthcare firm by working collaboratively with organisational members over a period of eighteen months. The study included gathering qualitative data in three AR cycles: 1) pre-implementation, 2) implementation and 3) post-implementation. The first cycle involved gathering data to form a baseline assessment of the organisation, which was used to provide feedback to top management on areas for improvement. In the second cycle, an action plan was developed with top managers and EALIM’s implementation was examined. In the third cycle, further data were gathered and findings were evaluated against the baseline assessment from the first cycle to identify the overall impact of EALIM on the organisation. Findings indicated that EALIM’s adoption generated a moral perception of the organisation, a learning culture, increased organisational commitment and an improvement in patient self-advocacy and independence. Factors that contributed to these outcomes were top management commitment, employee empowerment, the use of trans-disciplinary groups and practice-based training. However, other findings indicated that poor leadership and staff nurses’ use of managerial control created variability in service quality. These findings suggest that while EALIM can lead to organisational improvement, the commitment of all internal stakeholders is required to achieve sustainable quality patient care

Eigentumsrechtliche Dezentralisierung und institutioneller Wettbewerb

--

TQM Is Alive but Not as We Know It: The Use of a Novel TQM Model in a Private Healthcare Company

UK healthcare has been facing an unprecedented quality crisis in recent times. In this context, the author setout to develop and evaluate the use of a novel total quality management (TQM) model in a private healthcare firm with the aim of improving patient care. By integrating contemporary organizational theories with TQM, an innovative model called EALIM—ethical, adaptive, learning and improvement model—was devised. Using an action research study, qualitative data were gathered in three research cycles, (1) pre-implementation, (2) implementation, and (3) post-implementation. Initial results showed EALIM’s adoption generated a moral organizational perception among employees, increased organizational commitment, emergence of a learning culture, and improvements in patient self-advocacy and independence. However, other findings indicated poor leadership produced variability in service quality. Although outcomes from this study clearly indicated that EALIM generated organizational improvement, commitment from all internal stakeholders is required to achieve sustainable quality patient care

Investigation of reduced hypercube (RH) networks : embedding and routing capabilities

The choice of a topology for the interconnection of resources in a distributed-memory parallel computing system is a major design decision. The direct binary hypercube has been widely used for this purpose due to its low diameter and its ability to efficiently emulate other important structures. The aforementioned strong properties of the hypercube come at the cost of high VLSI complexity due to the increase in the number of communication ports and channels per node with an increase in the total number of nodes. The reduced hypercube (RH) topology, which is obtained by a uniform reduction in the number of links for each hypercube node, yields lower complexity interconnection networks compared to hypercubes with the same number of nodes, thus permitting the construction of larger parallel systems. Furthermore, it has been shown that the RH at a lower cost achieves performance comparable to that of a regular hypercube with the same number of nodes. A very important issue for the viability of the RH is to investigate the efficiency of embedding frequently used topologies into it. This thesis proposes embedding algorithms for three very important topologies, namely the ring, the torus and the binary tree. The performance of the proposed algorithms is analyzed and compared to that of equivalent embedding algorithms for the regular hypercube. It is shown that these topologies are emulated efficiently on the RH. Additionally, two already proposed routing algorithms for the RH are evaluated through simulation results

Isotopic Production Cross Sections in Proton-Nucleus Collisions at 200 MeV

Intermediate mass fragments (IMF) from the interaction of $^{27}$Al, $^{59}$Co and $^{197}$Au with 200 MeV protons were measured in an angular range from 20 degree to 120 degree in the laboratory system. The fragments, ranging from isotopes of helium up to isotopes of carbon, were isotopically resolved. Double differential cross sections, energy differential cross sections and total cross sections were extracted.Comment: accepted by Phys. Rev.