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Corruption and Misuse of Public Office
Get PDFThis book covers the law and practice in the field of corruption around the world, although the UK remains the principal focus
If I Ever Have to Go to Prison, I Hope it’s a Russian Prison’: British Labour, Social Democracy and Soviet Communism, 1919–25
Get PDFThrough the inter-war period, the USSR became an example of ‘socialism in action’ that the British labour movement could both look towards and define itself against. British visitors both criticized and acclaimed aspects of the new Soviet state between 1919 and 1925, but a consistently exceptional finding was the Soviet prison. Analysing the visits and reports of British guests to Soviet prisons, the aims of this article are threefold. Using new material from the Russian archives, it demonstrates the development of an intense admiration for, and often a desire to replicate, the Soviet penal system on the part of Labour members, future Communists, and even Liberals who visited Soviet Russia. It also critically examines why, despite such admiration, the effect of Soviet penal ideas failed to significantly influence Labour Party policy in this area. Finally, placing these views within a broader framework of the British labour movement’s internal tussles over the competing notions of social democracy and communism, it is argued that a failure to affect policy should not proscribe reappraisals of these notions or the Soviet-Labour Party relationship, both of which were more complex than is currently permitted in the established historiography
Value of the stochastic efficiency in data envelopment analysis
Get PDFThis article examines the potential benefits of solving a stochastic DEA model over solving a deterministic DEA model. It demonstrates that wrong decisions could be
made whenever a possible stochastic DEA problem is solved when the stochastic information is either unobserved or limited to a measure of central tendency. We propose two linear models: a semi-stochastic model where the inputs of the DMU of interest are treated as random while the inputs of the other DMUs are frozen at their expected values, and a stochastic model where the inputs of all of the DMUs are treated as random. These two models can be used with any empirical distribution in a Monte Carlo sampling approach. We also define the value of the stochastic efficiency (or semi-stochastic efficiency) and the expected value of the efficiency
SCCOF: smart cooperative computation offloading framework for mobile cloud computing services
No full textVirtual reality games and image processing Apps are examples of mobile cloud computing services (MCCS) common on Smartphones (SPs) nowadays, requiring intensive processing and/or wireless networking. The consequences are slow execution and huge battery consumption. Offloading the intensive computations of such Apps to a cloud based server can overcome such consequences. However, such offloading will introduce time delay and communication overheads. This paper proposes to do the offloading to nearby computing resources in a cooperative computation sharing network via short-range wireless connectivity. The proposed SCCOF reduces offloading response time and energy consumption overheads. SCCOF is supported by an intelligent cloud located controller that will form the cooperative resource sharing network on the go when needed, based on available devices in the vicinity, and will use the cloud if necessary. Upon the initiation of the MCCS service via the App, our controller will devise the offloaded VMs as well as the offloading network. A study test scenario was performed to evaluate the performance of SCCOF, resulting in saving of up to 16.2x in execution time and 57.25% energy
Automatic Spine Curvature Estimation from X-ray Images of a Mouse Model
Get PDFAutomatic segmentation and quantification of skeletal structures has a variety of applications for biological research. Although solutions for good quality X-ray images of human skeletal structures are in existence in recent years, automatic solutions working on poor quality X-ray images of mice are rare. This paper proposes a fully automatic solution for spine segmentation and curvature quantification from X-ray images of mice. The proposed solution consists of three stages, namely preparation of the region of interest, spine segmentation, and spine curvature quantification, aiming to overcome technical difficulties in processing the X-ray images. We examined six different automatic measurements for quantifying the spine curvature through tests on a sample data set of 100 images. The experimental results show that some of the automatic measures are very close to and consistent with the best manual measurement results by annotators. The test results also demonstrate the effectiveness of the curvature quantification produced by the proposed solution in distinguishing abnormally shaped spines from the normal ones with accuracy up to 98.6%
Tim Bartness, Ph.D. (1953-2015)
No full textTim Bartness (Fig. 1) was a friend, mentor, collaborator and leader to many scientists, younger and older, across a
variety of disciplines. He died September 24, 2015 at the age of 62 after a one-year battle with multiple myeloma.
Tim not only helped educate many of us, but also challenged us to think critically and to laugh heartily about
both the bad and the good we experienced in life. Tim was dedicated to science and to those around him. He
worked diligently on his research right up the very end until he no longer could
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of ward rounds
Get PDFPurpose: Ward rounds in hospitals are crucial for decision-making in the context of patient treatment processes. However, these tasks are not systematically managed and are often extended due to missing information, equipment or staff unavailability. This research assesses whether ward rounds can be structured more efficiently and effectively from the perspective of patients and staff.
Methodology/Approach: This mixed method approach examines the ward rounds conducted in three units within a haematology department of a major Danish hospital. Baseline measures were collected to capture the value of the ward round described by patients and staff. The information, patient and equipment flows associated with a typical ward round were mapped with recommendations for improvement.
Findings: Staff aspired to deliver a good quality ward round, but what this meant was never articulated and there were no established standards. The duration of the ward round was unpredictable and could take six hours to complete. Improvements identified by the team allows the ward round to be completed by mid-day with much more certainty.
Research Limitations/implications: This research provides an insight as to how ward rounds are conducted within a Danish haematology department. This has implications for those involved in ward rounds to reduce the time taken whilst maintaining quality and safety of patient care.
Originality/Value: Previous research has focused on the interactions between doctors and nurses. This research focuses on the operational process of the ward round and presents a structured approach to support multi-disciplinary teams with a focus on value from the patient’s perspective