1,720,984 research outputs found
New technology, skill and deskilling in non-manual work
No full textThis thesis examines the consequences for skill when new technology is introduced to non-manual work. In the first main section the literature on technological change and skill is critically reviewed. Building on this examination, which identifies a lack of clarity in the definition of skill and in the relation between skill and control, a framework is developed for understanding skill at the level of the job. Skill is seen as having two main dimensions, technical complexity and discretion, and a number of possible measures, task complexity, knowledge, task range and variety, decision-making, control over the organisation of work, and supervision. This framework is then used, in the second main section, to examine the effects of technological change on various types of non-manual work. In all, ten case studies were carried out by the author, and these are grouped under four main occupational heading: clerical, professional/technical, `white-collar production' and maintenance. A range of types of non-manual work was chosen because most studies of skill changes have concentrated either on manual workers or on one particular type of non-manual work. The aim was therefore to draw some more general conclusions based on a wider range of empirical evidence. The case studies show how new technology may change particular aspects of a job, for example, by simplifying or eliminating manual or arithmetical tasks and reducing the range of tasks carried out. In some cases, though, new tasks may compensate for those lost. The discretionary content of a job, however, was found to depend more on the role and objectives of management and the hierarchy of decision-making and control in the workplace than on the technology used. Moreover, it was found that skill is influenced by an array of factors, including the position of the workgroup in the hierarchy, worker organisation and organisational changes which often accompany the introduction of new technology. Despite these mainly social influences on skill changes, however, new technology was found at times to change the relationship between the worker, the equipment and the product in ways which may be hard to avoid except through the redesign of the technology. In the final chapter the implications of technological change for class structure are examined in relation to the case study material. Some support is given to the theory of an increasing divide between a `service class' and deskilled white collar workers. Current patterns of gender segregation in employment may also be reinforced. Some support is also given to the theory of deskilling as a progressive tendency of the capitalist mode of production as a consequence of standardisation and the socialisation of production. (D74276/87)</p
A firm choice: law firms’ preferences in the recruitment of trainee solicitors
No full textResearch study exploring the factors considered in the recruitment of trainee solicitors in the UK
Communicating economic evidence about immigration changes attitudes and policy preferences
Get PDFExisting studies demonstrate that threat perceptions matter for immigration attitudes. However, while these perceptions are potentially sensitive to information about immigrants’ impacts, questions remain about whether inserting such information into public debates changes attitudes and policy preferences—especially on polarizing issues like immigration. Moreover, few studies have considered messages featuring the type of nonphotorealistic visual elements that increasingly appear in media. Using a survey experiment fielded in the United Kingdom, we examined whether evidence about European Union immigrants’ modestly positive economic impacts on the United Kingdom—presented either as text, with visualizations, or as an animated film—changed immigration attitudes and policy preferences. Although visual elements did not have an effect over and above text, all the informational treatments moved attitudes and preferences in positive directions, even among Leave voters. Our study brings together research on immigration public opinion and visual media and has implications for policymaking and journalism practice
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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