Best value and workplace partnership in local government

Purpose – This paper explores employee experiences concerning job security/insecurity, workload, job satisfaction and employee involvement in the aftermath of Best Value reviews in a local authority. Design/methodology/approach – Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques employees’ experiences of Best Value reviews in a local authority are compared and contrasted with council staff employed elsewhere in the authority to establish the extent to which workplace partnership principles have taken hold under a Best Value regime. Findings – Little evidence of positive outcomes was found from partnership at work under a Best Value regime. The constraints imposed by central government, under which managers in the public sector operate, contributed significantly to partnership at work remaining little more than a hollow shell. Originality/value – This paper provides a recent in-depth case study of the experience of workplace partnership, which was developed not discrete from but as part of the Best Value modernisation programme in a local authority

Probability and Statistics in the Legal Curriculum: A Case Study in Disciplinary Aspects of Interdisciplinary

This Article provides a general taxonomy for various types of educational interdisciplinarity. The discussion focuses, however, on what is called crossdisciplinary education, using a particular mathematics-based example to illustrate how crossdisciplinary education can be used to ask law students to (re)examine law as a discipline. The Article considers interdisciplinarity and the legal curriculum in the context of probability and statistics, using the well-known jury discrimination case of Castaneda v. Partida as a case study. The Article concludes with some brief observations on the importance of thinking about law as a discipline. This is the third installment of a work in progress, the goal of which is not so much to construct a definitive portrait of law, as it is to examine what such a construction entails

Comparative Effectiveness of Step-up Therapies in Children with Asthma Prescribed Inhaled Corticosteroids : A Historical Cohort Study

This work was supported by the Respiratory Effectiveness Group. Acknowledgments We thank the Respiratory Effectiveness Group for funding this work, Annie Burden for assistance with statistics, and Simon Van Rysewyk and Lisa Law for assistance with medical writing.Peer reviewedPostprin

Formula SAE Interchangeable Independent Rear Suspension Design

The Suspension Solutions design team has completely designed built and tested an independent rear suspension system for the 2008 FSAE car. The car currently features a solid rear axle, and the task of converting it to incorporate an interchangeable rear suspension has been undertaken in order to quantify the advantages and disadvantages of each design philosophy. The car has been properly tested with both the solid axle and independent rear suspension side-by-side, however more testing is suggested. After pushing both setups to their limits on a 50ft diameter skid pad, the test results were quantified, and a final comparison between the two design philosophies was tabulated. From our limited testing we can easily conclude that an IRS FSAE car, at minimum, can match the performance of the previous solid axle setup, while being 22lbs heavier. We suspect its performance advantage to become apparent with additional testing however. More subjectively, it was found that the IRS handled more predictably and was easier for novice drivers to control and drive. Our results help quantify the advantages and disadvantages of each system and can be used by future FSAE teams to make more informed design decisions. Our independent rear suspension design includes an unequal length A-Arm configuration, new rear uprights, spindles and hubs, a Torsen differential, and an additional steel space frame to connect all of the listed components to the CP08 chassis. Our initial analysis shows that a performance edge between the two competing systems is dependent on the overall weight of each system and our preliminary testing results help confirm this analysis

Paper Session II-C - Can Robots Build a Lunar Habitat?

Developing a human habitat on the lunar surface will require an extensive infrastructure with a large number of assembled and tested components. Automating the development of this infrastructure using robotic systems would greatly reduce the cost. However, advances in the technology must be reali/.ed for robots to be used in such typical tasks as mating module and equipment interfaces and connecting umbilicals and fasteners. This paper addresses the challenges in automating the assembly of lunar components. The specific tasks which must be automated and the corresponding technology advances required are discussed here. This is an attempt to foster discussion of the issues of automating lunar surface operations and to highlight the most critical areas of technology that must be addressed to make lunar habitation a reality

Horticultural Studies 2003

We are pleased to bring you the sixth edition of Horticultural Studies. This publication, beginning with Horticultural Studies 1998, has continued to bring to the citizens of Arkansas the latest reports about horticultural crop research being conducted throughout the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Our goal with this publication was to bring annual up-to-date findings to the horticultural community in Arkansas so that you could utilize these new findings and/or contact the researchers for further information. We hope that this goal is being met. As editors, we strive to make this publication reader-friendly, timely, and hopefully of value to you, a user of the resulting technology, who we in the Department of Horticulture are working to serve