Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Making Sense Of Irish Health Care Management: The Street Level Public Organisation (Slpo)., Vivienne Byers

Conference papers

Public service reform in modern economies has placed an emphasis on effective planning and management of service delivery to the citizen-client. This paper draws on the concept of the Street Level Public Organization (SLPO) to examine the problem of government’s top down implementation of planning reform in the delivery of public services. It does so, by exploring the implementation of strategic planning in the health sector and drawing upon field work from such implementation in the health services in Ireland and Canada. The SLPO model (McKevitt 1998) is used as an explanatory tool to add to the public sector reform …

Young And Older Adults’ Beliefs About Effective Ways To Mitigate Age-Related Memory Decline, Michael Horhorta, Tara T. Lineweaver, Monique Ositelu, Kristi Summers, Christopher Herzog

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This study investigated whether young and older adults vary in their beliefs about the impact of various mitigating factors on age-related memory decline. Eighty young (ages 18–23) and eighty older (ages 60–82) participants reported their beliefs about their own memory abilities and the strategies that they use in their everyday lives to attempt to control their memory. Participants also reported their beliefs about memory change with age for hypothetical target individuals who were described as using (or not using) various means to mitigate memory decline. There were no age differences in personal beliefs about control over current or future memory …

New Performance Measurement And Management Control Systems, Ted Watts, Carol J. Mcnair-Connolly

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - Focusing on how performance management systems support control, this article seeks to provide two "next-generation" performance scorecards - the Performance Wheel, suitable for most organizations and the Small Business Performance Pyramid, which acknowledges the unique requirements of small business. This development considers the historical development, increasing variety and often the poorly integrated status of performance measurement systems - one of business management's most important tools.

Design/methodology/approach - The paper considers the issues of various performance measurement models - the Performance Pyramid, the Results and Determinants mode, the Balanced Scorecard - through the integration of perspectives, metrics and terminology. …

The Association Between Job Demands/Control And Health In Employed Parents: The Mediating Role Of Work-To-Family Interference And Enhancement, Christopher A. Magee, Natalie Stefanic, Peter Caputi, Donald C. Iverson

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

"This paper examined whether work-to-family interference (WFI) and work-to-family enhancement (WFE) mediated the association between job demands/control and self-reported mental and physical health. Data were from the Household, Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia survey and included 1,404 Australian adults aged 18-64 years at baseline; 820 participants provided data at three time points (baseline, 12-month follow-up, and 24-month follow-up). Self-report questionnaires assessed mental and physical health, WFI and WFE, and job demands/control. Mediation analyzes performed on the longitudinal data indicated that WFI mediated the relationships between job demands/control and self-reported mental and physical health. The findings have implications for improving …

Weight Change In Control Group Participants In Behavioural Weight Loss Interventions: A Systematic Review And Meta-Regression Study, Lauren Waters, Alexis B. St George, Tien Chey, Adrian E. Bauman

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background Unanticipated control group improvements have been observed in intervention trials targeting various health behaviours. This phenomenon has not been studied in the context of behavioural weight loss intervention trials. The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review and meta-regression of behavioural weight loss interventions to quantify control group weight change, and relate the size of this effect to specific trial and sample characteristics. Methods Database searches identified reports of intervention trials meeting the inclusion criteria. Data on control group weight change and possible explanatory factors were abstracted and analysed descriptively and quantitatively. Results 85 trials were …

Integrated Seat And Suspension Control For A Quarter Car With Driver Model, Haiping Du, Weihua Li, Nong Zhang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper, an integrated vehicle seat and sus pension control strategy for a quarter car with driver model is proposed to improve suspension performance on driver ride comfort. An integrated seat and suspension model that includes a quarter-car suspension, a seat suspension, and a 4-degree-of freedom (DOM) driver body model is presented first. This in1 tegrated model provides a platform to evaluate ride comfort 1performance in terms of driver head acceleration responses under typical road disturbances and to develop an integrated control of seat and car suspensions. Based on the integrated model, an H∞ state feedback controller is designed …

Robust Yaw Moment Control For Vehicle Handling And Stability, Haiping Du, Nong Zhang, Wade Smith

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents a robust yaw moment controller design approach for improving vehicle handling and stability. With considering the parameter-varying property of tyre cornering stiffness in extreme handling situations, a linear parameter-varying (LPV) model in polytopic form is constructed to represent the nonlinear characteristics of tyres. A yaw moment controller is then designed for the LPV model which aims at optimising the tracking performance on both yaw rate and sideslip angle with respect to their targets. The conditions for designing such a controller are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Numerical simulations on a nonlinear vehicle model are …

Control Of Five-Level Flying Capacitor Based Active-Neutral-Point-Clamped Converter For Grid Connected Wind Energy Applications, Sridhar R. Pulikanti, Kashem Muttaqi, D Suntanto

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Integration of wind energy sources into the distribution grid affects the voltage profile that could be stabilized through the grid reinforcement or limiting the active power injection. This paper presents a control strategy to regulate the voltage at point of common coupling (PCC) through reactive power exchange to the grid. The reactive power capability of the grid-connected hybrid multilevel converter is based on the voltage sensitivity of the distribution grid at PCC. A hybrid five-level multilevel converter referred as flying capacitor (FC) based active-neutral-point-clamped (ANPC) converter is considered. It is an arrangement of a three-level ANPC converter and a two-level …

Impact Of Wind Generator Control Strategies On Flicker Emission In Distribution Networks, Lasantha Meegahapola, Sarath Perera

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Renewable power generators are increasingly being integrated to electricity networks to achieve future renewable energy targets in power generation. In particular, wind power generation has already reported substantial penetration levels in electricity networks. Traditionally, flicker phenomenon is considered to be one of the power quality issues in power distribution networks due to fluctuating consumer loads connected to the network. Large-scale integration of wind power generators may create significant voltage fluctuations in distribution feeders due to stochastic and intermittent nature of the wind resources. This study aims to investigate and characterize the flicker emission under different control strategies for DFIG based …

Indian Millennials: Are Microchip Implants A More Secure Technology For Identification And Access Control?, Christine Perakslis, Katina Michael

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This mixed methods study with a sequential explanatory strategy explored qualitatively the statistically significant quantitative findings relative to Indian respondents' perceptions about RFID (radio frequency identification) transponders implanted into the human body. In the first analysis phase of the study, there was a significant chi-square analysis reported (χ2 = 56.64, df = 3, p =.000) relative to the perception of small business owners (N = 453) that implanted chips are a more secure form of identification and/or access control in organizations and the respondents' country of residence. Countries under study included Australia, India, the UK and US. The country contributing …

Experimental Investigation Of A Hydraulically Interconnected Suspension In Vehicle Dynamics And Stability Control, Lifu Wang, Nong Zhang, Haiping Du

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Mainly motivated by developing cost-effective vehicle anti-roll systems, hydraulically interconnected suspension has been studied in the past decade to replace anti-roll bars. It has been proved theoretically and practically that hydraulic suspensions have superior anti-roll ability over anti-roll bars, and therefore they have achieved commercial success in racing cars and luxury sports utility vehicles (SUVs). However, since vehicle is a highly coupled complex system, it is necessary to investigate/evaluate the hydraulic-suspension-fitted-vehicle's dynamic performance in other aspects, apart from anti-roll ability, such as ride comfort, lateral stability, etc. This paper presents an experimental investigation of a SUV fitted with a hydraulically …

Robust Sampled-Data Control Of Structures Subject To Parameter Uncertainties And Actuator Saturation, Haiping Du, Nong Zhang, Bijan Samali, Fazel Naghdy

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

"This paper presents a robust sampled-data controller design approach for vibration attenuation of civil structures considering parameter uncertainties and actuator saturation. The parameter uncertainties belong to polytopic form and are assumed to be the variations of the structural stiffness and damping. Regarding the uncertain sampling problem encountered in real world applications, the sampling period designed for the controller is allowed to be variable within a given bound. In order to obtain reduced peak response quantities, the energy-to-peak performance used to describe the peak values of the control output under all possible energy-bounded disturbances is optimised. The robust sampled-data state feedback …

Functional Connectivity In Brain Networks Underlying Cognitive Control In Chronic Cannabis Users, Ian H. Harding, Nadia Solowij, Ben J. Harrison, Michael Takagi, Valentina Lorenzetti, Dan I. Lubman, Marc L. Seal, Christos Pantelis, Murat Yucel

Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The long-term effect of regular cannabis use on brain function underlying cognitive control remains equivocal. Cognitive control abilities are thought to have a major role in everyday functioning, and their dysfunction has been implicated in the maintenance of maladaptive drug-taking patterns. In this study, the Multi-Source Interference Task was employed alongside functional magnetic resonance imaging and psychophysiological interaction methods to investigate functional interactions between brain regions underlying cognitive control. Current cannabis users with a history of greater than 10 years of daily or near-daily cannabis smoking (n=21) were compared with age, gender, and IQ-matched non-using controls (n=21). No differences in …

Information Systems Procurement Process Risk And Control: Insights From A Public Sector Organization, Gary Pan, Manjari Mehta, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This case highlights the specific risks and issues that may be encountered in the information systems (IS) procurement process in a country where bribery and corruption are more common. PSO is a large Indian public sector organization involved in energy-related business. Being financially deprived, PSO relied on government funding to build its infrastructures. Besides the funding support, PSO also inherited the bureaucratic structure and the corruption practices. Lately, PSO was involved in several IS infrastructure and applications upgrading projects and wanted to review its IS procurement process. Does PSO understand the process risks in public IS procurement? Does PSO have …