Change management and relocation: a moving experience

Organisational change brings with it a need for facilities changes. Merging, splitting, downsizing, upsizing, adaptations, are all physical manifestations of the need for change. Along with these changes are innumerable human and organizational changes that are often unintended and poorly understood. The purpose of this paper is to explore what the wider literature has to say about these secondary effects. Specifically, we consider the displacement and fracturing of established modes of operation embedded in previously occupied buildings and the formation of new modes of operation. The paper considers the application of ‘griefwork’ initially proposed by Kubler-Ross in the 1950s. Such an approach provides a means to understand physical change. Furthermore, in the following analysis we consider research currently being undertaken at MediacityUK to trace the transition experiences of those impacted by a major facility change across a split-site. The research findings will provide insights concerning architectural and facilities management interventions that can significantly reduce the human and organizational cost of change, which though difficult to measure, have a profound effect on the sustainability of an organization

The D(D3)D(D_{3})-anyon chain: integrable boundary conditions and excitation spectra

Chains of interacting non-Abelian anyons with local interactions invariant under the action of the Drinfeld double of the dihedral group $D_3$ are constructed. Formulated as a spin chain the Hamiltonians are generated from commuting transfer matrices of an integrable vertex model for periodic and braided as well as open boundaries. A different anyonic model with the same local Hamiltonian is obtained within the fusion path formulation. This model is shown to be related to an integrable fusion interaction round the face model. Bulk and surface properties of the anyon chain are computed from the Bethe equations for the spin chain. The low energy effective theories and operator content of the models (in both the spin chain and fusion path formulation) are identified from analytical and numerical studies of the finite size spectra. For all boundary conditions considered the continuum theory is found to be a product of two conformal field theories. Depending on the coupling constants the factors can be a $Z_4$ parafermion or a $\mathcal{M}_{(5,6)}$ minimal model.Comment: Major revisions have been mad

Integrable anyon chains: from fusion rules to face models to effective field theories

Starting from the fusion rules for the algebra $SO(5)_2$ we construct one-dimensional lattice models of interacting anyons with commuting transfer matrices of `interactions round the face' (IRF) type. The conserved topological charges of the anyon chain are recovered from the transfer matrices in the limit of large spectral parameter. The properties of the models in the thermodynamic limit and the low energy excitations are studied using Bethe ansatz methods. Two of the anyon models are critical at zero temperature. From the analysis of the finite size spectrum we find that they are effectively described by rational conformal field theories invariant under extensions of the Virasoro algebra, namely $\mathcal{W}B_2$ and $\mathcal{W}D_5$, respectively. The latter contains primaries with half and quarter spin. The modular partition function and fusion rules are derived and found to be consistent with the results for the lattice model.Comment: 43 pages, published versio

Taking A Stand: The Effects Of Standing Desks On Task Performance And Engagement

Time spent sitting is associated with negative health outcomes, motivating some individuals to adopt standing desk workstations. This study represents the first investigation of the effects of standing desk use on reading comprehension and creativity. In a counterbalanced, within-subjects design, 96 participants completed reading comprehension and creativity tasks while both sitting and standing. Participants self-reported their mood during the tasks and also responded to measures of expended effort and task difficulty. In addition, participants indicated whether they expected that they would perform better on work-relevant tasks while sitting or standing. Despite participants’ beliefs that they would perform worse on most tasks while standing, body position did not affect reading comprehension or creativity performance, nor did it affect perceptions of effort or difficulty. Mood was also unaffected by position, with a few exceptions: Participants exhibited greater task engagement (i.e., interest, enthusiasm, and alertness) and less comfort while standing rather than sitting. In sum, performance and psychological experience as related to task completion were nearly entirely uninfluenced by acute (~30-min) standing desk use. View Full-Tex

To germinate or not to germinate : a question of dormancy relief not germination stimulation

A common understanding of the control of germination through dormancy is essential for effective communication between seed scientists whether they are ecologists, physiologists or molecular biologists. Vleeshouwers et al. (1995) realized that barriers between disciplines limited progress and through insightful conclusions in their paper ‘Redefining seed dormancy: an attempt to integrate physiology and ecology’, they did much to overcome these barriers at that time. However, times move on, understanding develops, and now there is a case for ‘Redefining seed dormancy as an integration of physiology, ecology and molecular biology’. Finch-Savage and Leubner-Metzger (2006) had this in mind when they extended and re-interpreted the definition of dormancy proposed by Vleeshouwers et al. (1995), by considering dormancy as a having a number of layers that must be removed, with the final layer of dormancy being synonymous with the stimulation/induction of germination

Regularization Methods for Fitting Linear Models with Small Sample Sizes: Fitting the Lasso Estimator using R

Researchers and data analysts are sometimes faced with the problem of very small samples, where the number of variables approaches or exceeds the overall sample size; i.e. high dimensional data. In such cases, standard statistical models such as regression or analysis of variance cannot be used, either because the resulting parameter estimates exhibit very high variance and can therefore not be trusted, or because the statistical algorithm cannot converge on parameter estimates at all. There exist an alternative set of model estimation procedures, known collectively as regularization methods, which can be used in such circumstances, and which have been shown through simulation research to yield accurate parameter estimates. The purpose of this paper is to describe, for those unfamiliar with them, the most popular of these regularization methods, the lasso, and to demonstrate its use on an actual high dimensional dataset involving adults with autism, using the R software language. Results of analyses involving relating measures of executive functioning with a full scale intelligence test score are presented, and implications of using these models are discussed. Accessed 4,969 times on https://pareonline.net from May 08, 2016 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

Space Shuttle: MDAC/MMC space shuttle booster determination of stability and control characteristics and power effects at subsonic speed, Mach numbers zero and 0.26

Low speed wind tunnel tests of stability and control characteristics of space shuttle booster at subsonic speed