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Numerical representations of fluid mixing
Get PDFThe work contained within this thesis is concerned with a
theoretical investigatiop of both laminar and thermally driven
types of cavity flow, together with an analysis of their associated mixing processes which find applications to Industrial mixing and also to the environment. The mixing efficiency has been viewed from two perspectives namely the
tracking of a selection of fluid particles, and also the simulation of the dispersive mixing of a coloured fluid element as carried along by the flow. This thesis also incorporates features of both Newtonian and a wide range of non-Newtonian fluids
The role of accounting in handling and reporting environmental effects
Get PDFThe thesis investigates the broad areas of accounting's adaptability in handling and
reporting environmental effects. The main purposes of the study are: firstly. to draw
together the literature of environmental concern and accounting: secondly to
establish whether the use of environmental accounting is practised. to ascertain
whether there is a suitable medium for environmental reporting and lastly to
formulate a theoretical environmental performance model. The overall orientation
of the research was to consider whether accounting should break away from its
traditional economic and financial principles and broaden its scope to embrace a
system that echoes with "environmental concern".
In order to address these issues. the methods of evaluating environmental effects
are looked at, together with the methods for accounting and reporting them.
For these purposes, data were collected using a cross-sectional corporate
methodology. The instrument used for the survey was the postal questionnaire.
The construction and content of the questionnaire were influenced by the
information gleaned from the literature review and, in the main, it covered
qualitative, quantitative and financial information.
The evidence gathered from the research has shown that environmental accounting
and reporting are being practised by a variety of companies and are also becoming
more widespread, which demonstrates that accounting is playing an important role
in handling environmental transactions. The research has also shown that
environmental accounting and reporting are gaining a broader perspective and now
embrace environmental management systems. resource efficiency, and general
environmental stewardship.
Overall, the study recognises and concludes that environmental accounting and
reporting, although spreading. should now be supported by environmental
accounting and reporting guidelines from the accountancy profession, and in time,
by legislation. Also environmental reports should be verified by external auditors
in order to improve their integrity and prevent them from being used as a public
relations exercise
Advancing nursing jurisdiction in diabetes care
Get PDFNursing has its own unique contribution to make to diabetes care, but that impact is rarely quantified, measured or conceptualised. The thesis makes this contribution in the form of three published research projects and proposes an adaptation to Abbott’s conceptual framework on the division of expert labour. The first research project demonstrates the value of the hospital based diabetes specialist nurse using a randomised controlled trial; the second delineates the competences of different levels of nurses in diabetes care using a nominal group technique and the third project provides a baseline of the state of nursing in relation to the initiation of insulin therapy using a survey approach. Each project is followed by a personal reflection and discussion of the implications in the light of Abbott’s framework.
Abbott’s thesis is that the development of professions is determined by a series of jurisdictional disputes rather than by a grand plan of the professions themselves. While this assertion does not always hold true in diabetes care the studies do concur with Abbott in other ways, particularly that the profession can be taken forward by taking responsibility for appropriate educational preparation, extending the boundaries of knowledge and the nursing role where appropriate. The discussion cautions against setting up professional edifices that become self-serving and stifle development, either by rigid enforcement of competences or by fossilising the nursing contribution to diabetes care. In terms of the care of the person with diabetes, nursing remains most effective within the umbrella of a multi-disciplinary team while demonstrating its own contribution. Nursing should show professionalism by continually striving for excellence, developing new knowledge and pushing role boundaries when it is in the best interests of the patient.
The original contribution to knowledge is shown in the research projects’ contribution to the evolution of diabetes nursing in the United Kingdom and the proposal that Abbott’s framework be modified to put more emphasis on the task of work to achieve optimum patient outcomes than on the jostling of professions; acknowledging the growth in multi-disciplinary team-working and rise in the power of organisations at the expense of the power of individual professions since his work was first published
Local government authority strategizing : a middle management perspective
No full textFor the past four decades, researchers have been discussing and arguing over the implementation of strategy within the public sector. There is an emerging literature on pluralism, and the interdependence of strategizing and organizing which is especially relevant to public service organizations. The research undertaken and reported in this thesis set out to identify how strategizing was implemented within one large local government authority, from the perspective of middle management. The study sought to ascertain which, if any, of the many implementation theories were applied in practice, and the implications of the tensions between strategizing and organizing.
Methodologically, there is a recognised paucity of participatory action learning and research in the strategizing field. Equally, gaps were found in the extant literature on strategizing from the middle management perspective. This research addressed both of these research gaps. The case study herein reported used participatory action research methods. Participatory action research teams followed an action research framework of six questions to identify the gaps between espoused theory and theory in practice.
The findings were that the local government authority was not designed for the external strategizing pluralism or the internal organizing pluralism. The organization was designed for regulation and control and so not best suited for the delivery of other types of service. The strategizing process lacked the specific policy input from the various marginalised communities who required the services most. It also specifically avoided any input from the front-line professional staff that held the relevant knowledge, experience and skills. The pluralistic nature of the society served and the lack of commitment on the frontline led to another phenomenon – street-level bureaucrats and the politicization of the community. These frontline service deliverers, ‘street-level bureaucrats’, not only interpreted the strategy to fit the specific, unique context of each neighbourhood but also educated the citizens to appreciate their own power through their politicization. The staff also restated their plans to fit the format of the current top-down strategy by rephrasing them using the current political language of the day
In search of quality
No full textThe recent review of dental services lead by Professor Jimmy Steele recommends that quality be addressed in dental service provision in England. Therefore the concept of quality needs to be made explicit in order to avoid ambiguity. The difficulties surrounding quality definitions saw the emergence of quality standards in the 1980s. The British Standard BS5750 became popular with organisations throughout this period and now through various revisions since the early 1990s it has been replaced by the ISO9000 standard. This is a written standard which has to be adhered to by any organisation wishing to be accredited with the quality ISO9000 kite mark. One of the fundamental issues to be dealt with in any organisation utilising the ISO9000 standard is that of its product. Without knowing the product it is impossible for an organisation to know if its activities have resulted in effective product realisation. So what is our product as a profession? Historically, I would imagine that we would have defined it as activities reacting to the vast amount of disease present in the population. Today our product includes restorative care but that is only a small part of what we now consider oral health to be. Therefore, we can surely say that as a profession our product is oral health. Contemporary definitions of oral health embrace a more three dimensional holistic 'social model of health' view rather than a two dimensional physical 'medical model of health' view. There is much in the dental literature demonstrating how the former contemporary definition can be measured using oral health-related quality of life measures. Should these measures not be fundamental to professional product realisation within a quality system
The usefulness of annual reports of Islamic institutions in GCC countries to investors: the case of Kuwait
No full textOver the last twenty years, there has been a rapid expansion of Islamic
financial institutions that do not deal in interest-based transactions. The financial
information of Islamic financial institutions issued in their annual reports is
different in certain features from the annual reports offered by conventional
financial institutions. This study attempts to investigate the usefulness of annual
reports produced by these institutions to investors. In particular, the study is
concerned with the perceptions of both institutional investors and customers in
Kuwait about the annual reports of Islamic financial institutions. In addition, the
study investigates the opinions of the preparers of annual reports of Islamic
financial institutions in GCC countries regarding various aspects of the annual
reports that could help investors make their investment decisions.
To achieve the above objective, two types of questionnaires and interview
were designed. The first type of questionnaire was carried out to solicit the
investors' perceptions of annual reports, the importance they attached to them and
the uses of these reports in their investment activities. The second type of
questionnaire was specifically used to investigate the opinions of the preparers of
annual reports regarding various aspects of annual reports that could help
investors make their investment decisions. The interview method was mainly used
to identify the customers' perceptions of Islamic financial institutions in Kuwait
about the usefulness of these annual reports.
The results of the questionnaire and the interviews indicated that the annual
reports are considered by customers and investors to be the main source of
information for investment decisions. The results also revealed that the timeliness
and credibility of information were perceived by respondents as the most
important qualitative characteristics that might affect the usefulness of
information sources about the performance of Islamic financial institutions.
Regarding the accounting regulation of financial information of Islamic financial
institutions, the results indicated that there is a need for accounting information to
be regulated in order to enhance the credibility of financial statements produced
by these institutions and increase their comparability and transparency to the
users
Time to get it sorted: the politics of ineffective drug education in the UK
No full textThis study examines the reasons behind the ongoing delivery of ‘ineffective’ school-based substance misuse education in the UK (ACMD, 2006). Historical documentary analysis explores the development of substance misuse education policy, and documents the issues surrounding attempts to measure the effectiveness of subsequent practice over the last 30 years. The research also evaluates the impact of the ‘Get Sorted’ project in establishing an infrastructure at a local authority level to co-ordinate a range of approaches to the delivery of substance misuse education within Rhondda Cynon Taf. The creation of the ‘Get Sorted’ project was informed by the findings of the documentary analysis and is concerned with reducing the practical limitations faced by educators in order to support them to improve the effectiveness of the education they deliver.
The research makes use of three sources of evidence; documentary analysis findings, quantitative data collected to meet the practical monitoring requirements of the ‘Get Sorted’ project, and qualitative research data collected to evaluate the impact of the ‘Get Sorted’ project. The analytical strategy combines the data derived from these three data sets through the application of Stake’s Countenance Theory of Educational Evaluation (1967).
The findings of the study demonstrate a conflict between the ‘prevention’ and ‘harm reduction’ approaches to substance misuse education. The assumptions that underpin these paradigms are analysed in conjunction with Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) subjective-objective dimension of assumptions, offering an original contribution to the debate about the efficacy of substance misuse education. The criteria used to define the ‘success’ of education programmes are shown to be unrealistic and not governed by evidence. This study shows that shifting the focus from measuring the effectiveness of individual programmes to the creation of a local authority infrastructure promotes collaboration between providers, improving the effectiveness of the education they deliver. Establishing an infrastructure, the ‘Get Sorted’ project has improved communication between practitioners and policy makers; implemented a consistent approach to the delivery of substance misuse education across a range of education providers and programmes; and ensured practice was informed by research
The application of knowledge based systems to the abstraction of design and costing rules in bespoke pipe jointing systems
Get PDFThis thesis presents the work undertaken in the creation of a knowledge based system aimed at facilitating the design and cost estimation of bespoke pipe jointing systems. An overview of the problem domain is provided and the findings from a literature review on knowledge based systems and applications in manufacturing were used to provide initial guidance to the research. The overall investigation and development process involved the abstraction of design and costing rules from domain experts using a sub-set of the techniques reviewed and the development and implementation of the knowledge based system using an expert system approach, the soft systems methodology (SSM) and the system development lifecycle methodology. Based on the abstracted design and costing rules, the developed system automates the design of pipe jointing systems, and facilitates cost estimation process within third party configuration software. The developed system was validated using two case studies and was shown to provide the required outputs
How can doctorates in business administration contribute to the development of strategists?
Get PDFThe emergence of the Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) in the United Kingdom (UK) in the past twenty years has heralded a significant departure in the approach to doctoral level business research. Key to the development of the DBA is its focus on engagement with organisations. This study explores a specific aspect of this engagement, a DBA’s potential contribution to the development of strategists.
The thesis is based on fourteen in-depth unstructured interviews with key respondents in the DBA community, namely, students, academic staff and staff from quasi-governmental agencies. Care was taken to select a purposeful sample of respondents who represented the range of informed perspectives on DBAs and their potential relationship with the development of strategists.
An inductive approach to analysing the interview transcripts was initially applied. This was done to explore the subject from as wide a perspective as possible. This inevitably produced some findings that may appear peripheral to the central research focus of this work but are in themselves worth reporting. The thesis also developed a conceptual frame consisting of key characteristics of strategists drawn from the extant literature. This frame formed the basis of a deductive analysis of the interviewee texts in order to form a perspective focused on the research aim and attendant research objectives.
The study identifies that there are a number of different forms of DBA and the structures of the award are still evolving. Several assumptions about the recruitment of students, such as numbers, age and experience and the relationship between the DBA and the Masters in Business Administration (MBA) are questioned.
The evidence in this study indicates that the DBA can have a positive influence on strategists’ key skill sets. Critically, DBAs can improve the reflective and reflexive abilities of individuals, particularly in the strategically important areas of creativity, analytical skills, communication, and strategic thinking. This,
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however, has not been identified by the key stakeholders within academia or outside the sector. The findings of this study might have important implications for those delivering DBAs, those intending to take a DBA, the organisations within which DBAs are placed and for government and sponsors of this form of high-level research. Thus, this study contributes to both practice and knowledge
Critical assessment of existing slope stability formulae and application to slope stabilisation
Get PDFIn this research, extensive use has been made of limit equilibrium methods of analysis
for studying the stability of slopes. For the determination of the factor of safety (FOS)
of slopes, the usual two-step process has been adopted; (a) assuming a slip surface for
the soil mass, and (b) using the appropriate limit equilibrium equation(s). Eight wellknown
limit equilibrium methods have been programmed to calculate different FOS
values. The comparative performance of the various analyses has been carried out
successfully using case studies. The innovative use of Gauss quadrature to calculate
the FOS values has been shown to reducet he iterative sequencesd ramatically with no
loss of accuracy.
A visco-plastic flow model has been proposed to estimate lateral forces on piles used
for slope stabilisation. The present research data occupies an "in-between" position to
the previously reported values, with the variation trend being confirmed satisfactorily
in all cases.
Slope stabilisation due to the presence of a row of piles has been investigated using
two distinct lateral load estimations. These include theories of plastic deformation and
the proposed visco-plastic flow which are modelled and implemented in a computer
program. Eight well-known methods of slope stability analyses have been adopted and
computer coded to re-calculate FOS values for a slope reinforced by a row of piles. A
Finite Element computer program has been developed to evaluate the displacement,
bending moment and shear force along the pile axis. The pile is analysed at two levels
above and below the slip failure surface