165 research outputs found
Evaluation of the condom trial in three correctional centres in New South Wales : interim report for the Department of Corrective Services
No full text42 leave
Evaluation of the condom trial in three correctional centres in New South Wales : final report for the Department of Corrective Services
No full text35, [11] leave
Learning and knowledge processes in an academic-management consulting research programme. The case of the MC Centre
No full textThe purpose of this thesis is twofold: to explore learning and knowledge processes in an academic-management consultancy collaborative research programme, and to investigate the enablers and barriers of these processes. The research is driven by an interest in understanding the nature of the divide between academic management research and management practice, the so called `relevance gap'. A narrative review of Organisational Learning theory is used to inform and ground the research. In addition, a systematic review on learning and knowledge processes within and across organisations is conducted. From the systematic review, a conceptual
framework is derived to guide empirical work. This framework identifies three key classes of enablers and barriers to learning and knowledge processes: `content', `practices' and `people'. The research design consists of an in-depth, longitudinal single case study with five embedded units of analysis (research projects). The case is explored by means of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, repertory grids and document analysis over a period of five years (2001-2006). The study identifies a number of paradoxes at individual, group and organisational levels that affect learning and knowledge processes in this case. Among others, a lack of a clearly articulated purpose, unclear mechanisms to exploit research findings, and non-sustained engagement of people help to explain how learning and knowledge failed to occur in some research projects but thrived in others. Purposeful engagement is proposed as an overarching integrative theme to enhance learning and knowledge in academic-management consulting research programmes.
This thesis contributes to theory providing a theoretically-informed, empirically¬grounded conceptualisation of enablers and barriers to learning and knowledge processes in academic-management consulting research programmes. This conceptualisation offers new perspectives to dimensionalise the divide between academic management research and management practice, contributing to the relevance gap debate. The thesis contributes to methodology by providing an exemplar of the adoption of an evidence-informed approach to knowledge using systematic review in the management field
The Future of Charge Card Networks
No full textThe general-purpose charge card is now ubiquitous and largely taken for granted. Annual charge card volume exceeds $5 trillion worldwide. Within the United States, nearly one billion cards are in use (about eight per household), and more than two billion worldwide. But charge cards, or more specifically, the cooperative networks that serve the largest card systems, Visa and MasterCard, are under legal attack through multiple lawsuits and under regulatory challenge in other countries. We trace in this essay multiple possible future 'scenarios'. This focus on possible futures distinguishes our work from many earlier studies of this subject.
Children Deconstructing Childhood
No full textCommentaries on childhood, whilst abundant, largely depend on secondary sources, namely adults. This research attempts to address the question 'what is childhood?' by consulting the primary source - children. This case study, of children attending a day-care centre in the West Midlands, England, adopted research tools that were developed to meet the needs of young children as research participants. Perspectives of childhood were identified and labelled the 'Playful Child', the 'Unknowing Child', the 'Needful Child' and the 'Unauthorised Child'. The findings suggest a necessary review of the role of the early years practitioner, in particular where practitioners are 'playing with' young children. © 2010 The Author(s). Children & Society © 2010 National Children's Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited
The KineSpring® Knee Implant System: an implantable joint-unloading prosthesis for treatment of medial knee osteoarthritis
No full textAnton G Clifford,1 Stefan M Gabriel,1 Mary O’Connell,1 David Lowe,1 Larry E Miller,2,3 Jon E Block31Moximed, Inc, Hayward, CA, USA; 2Miller Scientific Consulting, Inc, Arden, NC, USA; 3The Jon Block Group, San Francisco, CA, USAAbstract: Symptomatic medial compartment knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of musculoskeletal pain and disability in adults. Therapies intended to unload the medial knee compartment have yielded unsatisfactory results due to low patient compliance with conservative treatments and high complication rates with surgical options. There is no widely available joint-unloading treatment for medial knee OA that offers clinically important symptom alleviation, low complication risk, and high patient acceptance. The KineSpring® Knee Implant System (Moximed, Inc, Hayward, CA, USA) is a first-of-its-kind, implantable, extra-articular, extra-capsular prosthesis intended to alleviate knee OA-related symptoms by reducing medial knee compartment loading while overcoming the limitations of traditional joint-unloading therapies. Preclinical and clinical studies have demonstrated excellent prosthesis durability, substantial reductions in medial compartment and total joint loads, and clinically important improvements in OA-related pain and function. The purpose of this report is to describe the KineSpring System, including implant characteristics, principles of operation, indications for use, patient selection criteria, surgical technique, postoperative care, preclinical testing, and clinical experience. The KineSpring System has potential to bridge the gap between ineffective conservative treatments and irreversible surgical interventions for medial compartment knee OA.Keywords: KineSpring, knee, medial, osteoarthritis, prosthesi
Swimming against the tide: a study of a neighbourhood trying to rediscover its ‘reason for being’– the case of South Bank, Redcar and Cleveland
No full textMany of the programmes and initiatives to regenerate deprived neighbourhoods appear to have had limited lasting impact. It has been argued that one reason for this is that we still have little real understanding of the nature and scale of the problems some communities face (Bernt, 2009). This paper attempts to add to our knowledge through close study of an area with multiple problems and a history of failed regeneration attempts. An in-depth case study undertaken to explore the current situation and future prospects of South Bank, a small neighbourhood in the North East of England, highlights transferable knowledge which may be applied to other regeneration areas.
The analysis considers the nature and consequences of industrial decline; entrenched deprivation; the stigmatization of communities; the value of community consultation and the potential impact of retail-led regeneration. We question whether negative stigma attached to places can be changed and we ask what the future may hold for deprived communities now that public sector funding has largely dried up, and we consider an alternative approach: the potential impacts of private sector retail-led regeneration in the absence of public sector funding
The Two Faces of Collaboration: Impacts of University-Industry Relations on Public Research
No full textWe analyze the impact of university-industry relationships on public research. Our inductive study of university-industry collaboration in engineering suggests that basic projects are more likely to yield academically valuable knowledge than applied projects. However, applied projects show higher degrees of partner interdependence and therefore enable exploratory learning by academics, leading to new ideas and projects. This result holds especially for research-oriented academics working in the ‘sciences of the artificial’ and engaging in multiple relationships with industry. Our learning-centred interpretation qualifies the notion of entrepreneurial science as a driver of applied university-industry collaboration. We conclude with implications for science and technology policy.University industry relations; Collaborative research; Contract research; Academic consulting; Science technology links; Engineering
A study of the consultant-client relationship: examining aspects of legitimation
No full textThis thesis provides an in-depth study of the consultant client relationship. It focuses on the phenomenon of legitimation which has been neglected in the prior literature. Legitimation is critical because it is responsible for signifying how and why knowledge claims come to be accepted or rejected between the client-consultant parties. The consultants' perceived value by the client is an outcome that is dependent on the economic and socio-political processes by which judgements are made. How legitimation takes place helps provides a new locus of understanding about the communication of business advice between consultants and clients. Such exploration helps generate novel insights for how value is created. Through the conduct of in-depth interviews with both consultants and clients, we managed to obtain comprehensive empirical data that helps challenge already held assumptions. Drawing on 64 interviews, with clients and consultants, and through the use of prior theoretical frameworks that are mainly drawn from the work by Suchman (1995) and Habermas (1984a, 1984b), we identify four modes of legitimation. Such modes are characterised in terms of their cognitive, pragmatic, moral and discursive nuances. We argue that each of the legitimatory categories indicate a separate set of conditions that need to be justified and which are driven by a distinct ideological character. Legitimation becomes a process in which implicit and explicit ideological values are mutually managed between the involved organisational actors. Our discussion helps open up a new field of understanding for the consultant client relationship that is relevant for both academics and practitioners
Population-based Research in South Wales: The MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit
No full text©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 2002. First published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2002. All volumes are freely available online at: www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/modbiomed/wellcome_witnesses/Annotated and edited A4 transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 23 March 1999, with extracts from a Witness Seminar on the MRC Pneumoconious Unit held on 9 November 1994. Introduction by Professor George Davey Smith.Annotated and edited A4 transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 23 March 1999, with extracts from a Witness Seminar on the MRC Pneumoconious Unit held on 9 November 1994. Introduction by Professor George Davey Smith.Annotated and edited A4 transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 23 March 1999, with extracts from a Witness Seminar on the MRC Pneumoconious Unit held on 9 November 1994. Introduction by Professor George Davey Smith.Annotated and edited A4 transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 23 March 1999, with extracts from a Witness Seminar on the MRC Pneumoconious Unit held on 9 November 1994. Introduction by Professor George Davey Smith.Annotated and edited A4 transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 23 March 1999, with extracts from a Witness Seminar on the MRC Pneumoconious Unit held on 9 November 1994. Introduction by Professor George Davey Smith.Annotated and edited A4 transcript of a Witness Seminar held on 23 March 1999, with extracts from a Witness Seminar on the MRC Pneumoconious Unit held on 9 November 1994. Introduction by Professor George Davey Smith.Population-based research in south Wales was initially to investigate occupational lung disease in miners. Archie Cochrane, the renowned epidemiologist, and his clinical and environmental studies group at the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit at Llandough Hospital, Cardiff, conducted respiratory and blood pressure surveys of workers in the Welsh valleys. In 1960 the epidemiological studies were separated from pneumoconiosis research and detailed studies began in the new Epidemiological Research Unit (South Wales) in Cardiff on glaucoma, dust diseases in flax, asbestos, steel and slate workers, with later work on iron deficiency anaemia, environmental lead, migraine, asthma, and two high-profile trials showing improved survival following a heart attack with regular use of aspirin and with consumption of a diet rich in oily fish. Statisticians and field workers made important contributions to both randomized controlled trials and observational studies at the unit over five decades. Selections from archived interviews with former members of both units appear as well as a section on the impact on data analysis from steadily increasing computational capacity. Contributors include: the late Dr David Bainton, Sir Christopher Booth, Dr Michael Burr, the late Dr Jeffrey Chapman, Professor Sir Richard Doll (Chair), Dr Peter Elwood, the late Dr Joan Faulkner, Dr Philip D’Arcy Hart, Dr Julian Tudor Hart, Mr Nick Henderson, the late Dr Sheila Howarth, Mrs Janie Hughes, Dr Philip Hugh-Jones, Mrs Marion Jones, Professor Stewart Kilpatrick, the late Dr Bill Miall, Dr Shaun Murphy, Dr Andy Ness, Professor John Pemberton, Professor George Davey Smith, Dr Selwyn St Leger, Dr Stephen Stansfeld, Professor David Strachan, Mr Peter Sweetnam, Dr Hugh Thomas, Mrs Mary Thomas, Dr David Tyrrell, Professor Owen Wade, Professor Estlin Waters, Dr Jean Weddell, Mrs Sheila Wright and Dr John Yarnell. Ness A R, Reynolds L A, Tansey E M. (eds) (2002) Population-based Research in South Wales: The MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit, Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, vol. 13. London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL is funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is a registered charity, no. 210183
- …
