3,851 research outputs found
Lean six sigma in a call centre : a case study
No full textThis paper, a case study, aims to illustrate the application of lean six sigma in a call centre of a service industry corporation. The study draws on process information and primary data from a real project. The study describes improvements in the operation of the call centre attributable to lean six sigma: increase in first-call resolution ratio, reduction in operator turnover and streamlining of processes. The introduction of lean six sigma into the call centre daily operations' management may have organizational benefits. Although lean six sigma has been extremely successful in the last two decades in the manufacturing sector, its applicability to the service sector has been a controversial topic. This study illustrates its application to a fast-growing area of the service sector, assisting companies in identifying areas of development for their call centres
Logging student answer data in CALL exercises to gauge feedback efficacy
No full textAn important advantage of online assessment work is that answer data can be easily stored and later analysed with a view to establishing the efficacy of the assessment methodology. A 5-year study of the effectiveness of online grammar exercises has been carried out at the University of Kent. The exercises featured require input in the form of whole sentences (since this is a more authentic test of language skills than single word input or multiple choice). Error feedback is generic (indicating where errors have occurred) rather than specific (indicating the exact nature of the errors) because the error-diagnosis system has been designed to be completely language independent. The study aimed to gauge whether this type of feedback is effective - in terms of enabling students to:
· identify the types of mistakes in their input;
· rectify the mistakes;
· learn from the mistakes and apply that learning to subsequent problems
There was initial concern that the generic feedback might not provide enough detail to enable users to understand and correct their errors - however extensive use by the University's Spanish department has shown that this type of mark-up is very effective. Chapelle (1998) stresses that it is important for learners to be given the opportunity to correct their linguistic errors. Users of this system, having failed to answer a question correctly on their first attempt, are permitted a second attempt. It is abundantly clear from the logged data that where users make mistakes in their first attempt (and they generally do since the material is designed to be testing), there is almost always a significant improvement in attempt two. This alone would be enough to show that the feedback mode is effective. However this was not enough to prove the pedagogical efficacy of this means of exercise presentation. Therefore more detailed analysis was performed. Over several years of trials more than 100,000 answers have been logged and every answer has been analysed. It can be shown that, for well-designed exercises, as students progress through an exercise they improve in three ways:
· more questions are answered correctly on the first attempt;
· overall questions scores (i.e. the average of 1st and 2nd attempts at questions) improve;
· thinking time for formulating answers decreases
The degree of increase in accuracy and decrease in thinking time is exercise-dependent, but the overall picture shows clearly that the generic, language-independent feedback is indeed effective. Moreover, it is easy to identify poorly designed exercises since they do not exhibit the characteristics listed above
Paul's Call to Imitation: The Rhetorical Function of the Theme of Imitation in its Epistolary Context
No full textDegree awarded: Ph.D. Biblical Studies. The Catholic University of AmericaPaul's Call to Imitation: The Rhetorical Function of the Theme of Imitation in Its Epistolary Context.Jason G. Weaver, Ph.D.Director: Frank J. Matera, Ph.D.The Pauline call to imitation is one of the most distinctive aspects of Pauline thought. The explicit call to imitation occurs five times in the non-disputed Pauline letters: 1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; 1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; and Phil 3:17. It is a call to imitate the example that Paul sets before the community to which he writes. Although these letters are the only ones in which Paul explicitly calls others to imitate him, the theme of imitation occurs throughout his writings. The monographs and articles that have addressed the theme of imitation in Pauline thought use either the historical-critical method or a rhetorical method to develop their thesis. This study examines the rhetorical function of the theme of imitation in its epistolary context. The rhetorical situation of the community to which Paul writes is an important element in the study of his letters. Therefore, examining each call to imitation within the rhetorical situation of the community to which Paul writes provides a clear understanding of his call to imitation. Although each call to imitation is found within a different rhetorical situation, this study argues that with each call to imitate him, Paul establishes a new set of community relationships to which each believing community must adhere. Within this new set of relationships there are four themes that are crucial to Paul's call to imitation: humility, suffering, unity, and salvation. These four themes form the shape and structure of true community life. Paul's call to imitation and his desire to create this new set of community relationships requires believers to live in humility and to be willing to endure suffering. The purpose of this imitation is to create unity within the community so that at the parousia all believers will share in salvation. Through his own example and the example of Christ, Paul demonstrates the example he calls others to imitate.Made available in DSpace on 2013-02-08T16:06:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1
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Deadness: technologies of the intermundane
No full textPosthumous duets—performances involving a dead singer and a living one—have become ubiquitous in popular music. As the case of Natalie and Nat “King” Cole’s “Unforgettable” makes clear, all sound recording harnesses the productive capacities of both living and dead, patterned through specific forms of co-laboring, or “deadness.
War Transitions and the New Civilian Security in Latin America
No full textPublished in:Comparative Politics Vol. 35, No. 1 (October 2002):1-20
Assessing El Salvador’s Transition From Civil War to Peace
No full textPreprint of chapter 14 of: Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild, & Elisabeth Cousens (eds.), Ending Civil Wars: The implementation of peace agreements. Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 200
FIGURE 9 in A rare new treefrog of the genus Sarcohyla (Anura: Hylidae) from Guerrero, Mexico
No full textFIGURE 9. Call analysis of Sarcohyla toyota sp. nov. from 11.4 km (by road) SW of Puerto de Gallo, Municipio de Atoyac de Álvarez, Guerrero, Mexico.Published as part of Grünwald, Christoph I., Franz-Chávez, Hector, Morales-Flores, Karen I., Ahumada-Carrillo, Ivan T. & Jones, Jason M., 2019, A rare new treefrog of the genus Sarcohyla (Anura: Hylidae) from Guerrero, Mexico, pp. 345-364 in Zootaxa 4712 (3) on page 358, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4712.3.2, http://zenodo.org/record/358632
Attempt, Reckless Homicide, and the Design of Criminal Law
No full textMost American criminal codes create an offense for recklessly killing another person, and nearly all contain a general provision covering any attempt to commit an offense. This article explores the relation between reckless homicide and attempt, which proves more complex than it appears and also turns out to provide a useful starting point for examination of several broader issues in attempt law and criminal law generally.
The idea of attempted reckless homicide (ARH) is largely disfavored by legal scholars and almost, but not quite, universally rejected in American law. Part I of the article questions that hostility. The theoretical arguments against ARH prove unpersuasive, or else too persuasive, in that taking them seriously would call into doubt not only ARH but also the general notion of having attempt liability at all. Moreover, the legal case against ARH under existing criminal statutes is by no means airtight. Indeed, the widely followed Model Penal Code formulation of attempt, read according to its own commentary's interpretive guidance, actually allows ARH in a limited set of situations, though the Code elsewhere tries to deny the possibility of ARH.
Although the law has not embraced ARH per se, it does penalize the same (or very nearly the same) conduct ARH would address, by creating a distinct offense of reckless endangerment, or a variety of more particular offenses covering specific forms of dangerous conduct, or both. Yet as Part II of the article discusses, the endangerment-offense solution to the ARH puzzle creates its own practical problems and raises a distinct set of questions about how to formulate criminal-law rules. The idea of writing a single attempt provision expansively covering any conduct that risks, but does not create, a criminal harm seems rooted in a sense that criminal law works best by establishing relatively few general rules of broad application. By contrast, the idea of identifying particular types of risky conduct and criminalizing each with a specific offense, such as reckless endangerment, indicates a sense that criminal rules should be narrow and precise rather than broad and flexible.
The article explores these two visions of how to write criminal law - which I call the thin-code and thick-code models, respectively - and describes how the choice between thick and thin is not merely formal, but may have significant practical consequences. Though each model has its independent merits, indiscriminately mixing the two is likely to make for a poor and problematic criminal code. Sadly, though, such thoughtless blends of thin and thick are all too common in our criminal law; if anything, they seem to be increasing.Please contact Charlotte Schneider ([email protected]) for any questions regarding this deposit
R-boundedness of smooth operator-valued functions
No full textIn this paper we study -boundedness of operator families \mathcal{T}\subset \calL(X,Y), where and are Banach spaces. Under cotype and type assumptions on and we give sufficient conditions for -boundedness. In the first part we show that certain integral operator are -bounded. This will be used to obtain -boundedness in the case that is the range of an operator-valued function T:\R^d\to \calL(X,Y) which is in a certain Besov space B^{d/r}_{r,1}(\R^d;\calL(X,Y)). The results will be applied to obtain -boundedness of semigroups and evolution families, and to obtain sufficient conditions for existence of solutions for stochastic Cauchy problems.Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Agentville: supporting situational awareness and motivation in call centres
No full textCall centres are high pressure work environments where agents work strictly according to shifts and time schedules. Typically, agents are grouped into teams with supervisors from whom they receive only periodic performance feedback. It is a challenge to maintain high motivation and performance amongst the agents in this environment. Agents may lack awareness of their individual status with respect to their objectives, and the performance of their team and the call center as a whole. In this chapter we describe the design of a system that we are building to provide the agents with real-time information on their work environment’s status and on potential improvements in performance, while hopefully also improving their work experience. The solution is based on the introduction in the call centre of some game mechanics whose selection and instantiation has been informed by case studies conducted by the author
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