Generating personalised service recommendations

In the context of service-oriented computing, the issue of service selection is an important one: how can a consumer find and choose a single, appropriate service of the required type, given the mass of services potentially available on a network? By using a service discovery mechanism (the focus of current service selection research), a consumer is able to obtain an unordered list of services which match explicitly specified requirements, from which he must select the service he considers most appropriate. However, formulating the original service request and selecting a service from the returned list are both challenging tasks, particularly for a consumer in unknown circumstances, with unknown services available. This research is thus concerned with the investigation, development and evaluation of a general design for a system that can provide a personalised service recommendation of appropriate services to a requesting consumer. The personalised service recommendation is generated through the assessment of past service selections/usage. A design-adhering prototype has been demonstrated to generate effective personalised service recommendations in a real-world scenario

Management guru

This thesis considers how the reader can become a management guru. To this end, it examines the history of management ideas in the period 1890-1990, and identifies those which have achieved widespread popularity. A management idea is the generic term used to refer to any research finding, theory, concept, framework or prescription that maintains currency within the world of management and management education and training. The thesis accounts for the popularity of these ideas. It argues that four sets of factors contribute to the establishment of the popularity of a management idea. First, the idea has to be timely, that is, in tune with social, economic and political concerns of the period. Second, it has to achieve a high level of visibility in order to gain managers’ awareness of its existence. Third, it should address the relatively stable and enduring set of managerial needs. Fourth, the idea should, in its content and design, be perceived by the managers as capable of fulfilling those needs. Five literature reviews were carried out. The first identified the six most popular management idea "families". The second was a historical review of the social, economic and political factors which formed the historical milieus from which these idea families evolved. The third literature review uncovered twelve recurring features of these popular management ideas. The fourth examined managers’ needs for such ideas, and the fifth examined how management ideas were marketed by companies and consultants. These literature reviews produced a set of hypotheses, some of which were tested in the empirical part of the study. These related primarily to the link between management needs and the characteristics of the ideas themselves. Both business school academics’ and managers’ reactions to different management ideas were assessed from a phenomenological perspective. This utilised self-completed questionnaires and the analysis of interview transcripts. The research conclusions are that the popularity of a management idea can both be predicted and planned for by enterprising and aspiring management gurus, be they business school faculty or management consultants. The application of the principles described in this thesis should secure for them, both fame and fortune

Publishing in top journals - a never-ending fad?

Starbuck is critical of faddishness, and with good reason. Fads may come, and fads may go, but go they must-or must they? We took at the relentless pressure to publish in the top journals of Management Studies. There is no sign of decline, and yet such desperation to do something of value not because it is useful but because demand for it is great certainly satisfies the definition of fad. Is a fad that runs and runs still a fad? (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

In silico Investigations of the Mode of Action of Novel Colchicine Derivatives Targeting β-Tubulin Isotypes: A Search for a Selective and Specific β-III Tubulin Ligand

The cardinal role of microtubules in cell mitosis makes them interesting drug targets for many pharmacological treatments, including those against cancer. Moreover, different expression patterns between cell types for several tubulin isotypes represent a great opportunity to improve the selectivity and specificity of the employed drugs and to design novel compounds with higher activity only on cells of interest. In this context, tubulin isotype βIII represents an excellent target for anti-tumoral therapies since it is overexpressed in most cancer cells and correlated with drug resistance. Colchicine is a well-known antimitotic agent, which is able to bind the tubulin dimer and to halt the mitotic process. However, it shows high toxicity also on normal cells and it is not specific for isotype βIII. In this context, the search for colchicine derivatives is a matter of great importance in cancer research. In this study, homology modeling techniques, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to characterize the interaction between 55 new promising colchicine derivatives and tubulin isotype βIII. These compounds were screened and ranked based on their binding affinity and conformational stability in the colchicine binding site of tubulin βIII. Results from this study point the attention on an amide of 4-chlorine thiocolchicine. This colchicine-derivative is characterized by a unique mode of interaction with tubulin, compared to all other compounds considered, which is primarily characterized by the involvement of the α-T5 loop, a key player in the colchicine binding site. Information provided by the present study may be particularly important in the rational design of colchicine-derivatives targeting drug resistant cancer phenotypes

The sources of management innovation: when firms introduce new management practices

Management innovation is the introduction of management practices new to the firm and intended to enhance firm performance. Building on the organizational reference group literature, this article shows that management innovation is a consequence of a firm's internal context and of the external search for new knowledge. Furthermore the article demonstrates a trade-off between context and search, in that there is a negative effect on management innovation associated with their joint occurrence. Finally the article shows that management innovation is positively associated with firm performance in the form of subsequent productivity growth

Horses for courses: exploring the limits of leadership development through equine-assisted learning

YesThis essay draws on insights taken from Lacanian psychoanalysis to rethink and resituate notions of the self and subjectivity within the theory and practice of experiential leadership development. Adopting an auto-ethnographic approach, it describes the author’s own experience as a participant in a programme of equine assisted learning or ‘horse whispering’ and considers the consequences of human-animal interactions as a tool for self-development and improvement. Through an analysis of this human/animal interaction, the essay presents and applies three Lacanian concepts of subjectivity, desire and fantasy and considers their form and function in determining the often fractured relationship between self and other that characterises leader-follower relations

A quest for patient-safe culture : contextual influences on patient safety performance

Peer reviewedPostprin

Chemical probes for the functionalization of polyketide intermediates

A library of functionalized chemical probes capable of reacting with ketosynthase-bound biosynthetic intermediates was prepared and utilized to explore in vivo polyketide diversification. Fermentation of ACP mutants of S. lasaliensis in the presence of the probes generated a range of unnatural polyketide derivatives, including novel putative lasalocid A derivatives characterized by variable aryl ketone moieties and linear polyketide chains (bearing alkyne/azide handles and fluorine) flanking the polyether scaffold. By providing direct information on microorganism tolerance and enzyme processing of unnatural malonyl-ACP analogues, as well as on the amenability of unnatural polyketides to further structural modifications, the chemical probes constitute invaluable tools for the development of novel mutasynthesis and synthetic biology

Postfeminism, neoliberalism and a 'successfully' balanced femininity in celebrity CEO autobiographies

This article explores the construction a ‘successfully’ balanced femininity in the female celebrity CEO autobiography genre, and how it is shaped by the postfeminist and neoliberal context. The paper shows how achieving successful and therefore desirable balance requires one to embrace femininity but in a calculated, market-oriented fashion that benefits business goals, ensuring that one remains a ‘good’ postfeminist as well as neoliberal subject; and argues that this new femininity poses little challenge to the existing gendered power relations in organizations. This paper adds to the existing debates on doing gender in the workplace by providing an understanding of how and why certain ways of doing femininity in organizations are allowed or disallowed, specifically, how certain organizational femininity comes to be constructed as more successful and valuable in contemporary postfeminist and neoliberal context. Furthermore, by examining how these ideals of balanced femininity are constructed in celebrity CEO autobiographies, the paper highlights the value of exploring these texts as representations of contemporary postfeminist and neoliberal cultural norms