scholarly journals Demystifying academics to enhance university–business collaborations in environmental science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Hillier ◽  
Geoffrey Saville ◽  
Mike J. Smith ◽  
Alister J. Scott ◽  
Emma K. Raven ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Science ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Performance Appraisals ◽  
Risk Modelling ◽  
Incentive Structures ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Key Barrier ◽  
Official Status

Abstract. In countries globally (e.g. UK, Australia) there is intense political interest in fostering effective university-business collaborations, but there has been scant attention devoted to exactly how individual scientists' workload (i.e. specified tasks) and incentive structures (i.e. assessment criteria) may act as a key barrier to this. To investigate this an original, empirical dataset is derived from UK job specifications and promotion criteria, which distil universities' varied drivers into requirements upon academics. This reveals the nature of the severe challenge posed by a heavily time-constrained culture; specifically, a tension exists between opportunities presented by working with industry and non-optional duties (e.g. administration, teaching). Thus, to justify the time to work with industry, such work must inspire curiosity and facilitate future novel science in order to mitigate its conflict with the overriding imperative for academics to publish. It must also provide evidence of real-world changes (i.e. impact), and ideally other reportable outcomes (e.g. official status as a business' advisor), to feed back into the scientist's performance appraisals. Indicatively, amid 20–50 key duties, scientists may be able to free up to 0.5 days/week for work with industry. Thus specific, pragmatic actions, including short-term and time-efficient steps, are proposed in a user guide to help initiate and nurture a long-term collaboration between an early- to mid-career environmental scientist and a practitioner in the insurance industry. These actions are mapped back to a tailored typology of impact and newly-created representative set of appraisal criteria to explain how they may be effective, mutually beneficial, and overcome barriers. Throughout, the focus is on environmental science, with illustrative detail provided through the example of natural hazard risk modelling in the insurance industry. However, a new conceptual model is developed, joining perspectives from literatures on academics' motivations and performance assessment, which we tentatively posit is widely applicable. Sector-specific details (e.g. list of relevant impacts, user guide) may serve as templates globally and across sectors.

scholarly journals Demystifying academics to enhance university–business collaborations in environmental science

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Hillier ◽  
Geoffrey R. Saville ◽  
Mike J. Smith ◽  
Alister J. Scott ◽  
Emma K. Raven ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Science ◽  
Performance Appraisals ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Insurance Sector ◽  
Incentive Structures ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Key Barrier ◽  
Official Status

Abstract. In countries globally there is intense political interest in fostering effective university–business collaborations, but there has been scant attention devoted to exactly how an individual scientist's workload (i.e. specified tasks) and incentive structures (i.e. assessment criteria) may act as a key barrier to this. To investigate this an original, empirical dataset is derived from UK job specifications and promotion criteria, which distil universities' varied drivers into requirements upon academics. This work reveals the nature of the severe challenge posed by a heavily time-constrained culture; specifically, tension exists between opportunities presented by working with business and non-optional duties (e.g. administration and teaching). Thus, to justify the time to work with business, such work must inspire curiosity and facilitate future novel science in order to mitigate its conflict with the overriding imperative for academics to publish. It must also provide evidence of real-world changes (i.e. impact), and ideally other reportable outcomes (e.g. official status as a business' advisor), to feed back into the scientist's performance appraisals. Indicatively, amid 20–50 key duties, typical full-time scientists may be able to free up to 0.5 day per week for work with business. Thus specific, pragmatic actions, including short-term and time-efficient steps, are proposed in a “user guide” to help initiate and nurture a long-term collaboration between an early- to mid-career environmental scientist and a practitioner in the insurance sector. These actions are mapped back to a tailored typology of impact and a newly created representative set of appraisal criteria to explain how they may be effective, mutually beneficial and overcome barriers. Throughout, the focus is on environmental science, with illustrative detail provided through the example of natural hazard risk modelling in the insurance sector. However, a new conceptual model of academics' behaviour is developed, fusing perspectives from literature on academics' motivations and performance assessment, which we propose is internationally applicable and transferable between sectors. Sector-specific details (e.g. list of relevant impacts and user guide) may serve as templates for how people may act differently to work more effectively together.

scholarly journals Contested Visions: The Value of Systems Theory for Corporate Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Belinfanti ◽  
Lynn Stout
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Shareholder Value ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Many

Despite the dominant role corporations play in our economy, culture, and politics, the nature and purpose of corporations remains hotly contested. This conflict was brought to the fore in the recent Supreme Court opinions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. Although the prevailing narrative for the past quarter-century has been that corporations “belong” to shareholders and should pursue “shareholder value,” support for this approach, which has been justified as essential for managerial accountability, is eroding. It persists today primarily in the form of the argument that corporations should seek “long-term” shareholder value. Yet, as this Article shows, when shareholder value is interpreted to mean “long-term” shareholder value, it no longer offers the sought-after managerial accountability.What can? This Article argues that systems theory offers an answer. Systems theory is a well-developed design and performance measuring methodology routinely applied in fields such as engineering, biology, computer science, and environmental science. It provides an approach to understanding the nature and purpose of corporate entities that is not only consistent with elements of the many otherwise-conflicting visions of the corporation that have been developed, but also with important and otherwise difficult-to-explain features of corporate law and practice. It offers proven methods for measuring corporate performance that recognize the possibility of multiple goals and the importance of sustainability. And it cautions that, by ignoring the lessons of systems theory, shareholder value thinking may have encouraged regulatory and policy interventions into corporate governance that are not only ineffective, but destructive.

scholarly journals Contested Visions: The Value of Systems Theory for Corporate Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Belinfanti ◽  
Lynn Stout
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Environmental Science ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Shareholder Value ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Many

166 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 579 (2018)Despite the dominant role corporations play in our economy, culture, and politics, the nature and purpose of corporations remains hotly contested. This conflict was brought to the fore in the recent Supreme Court opinions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. Although the prevailing narrative for the past quarter-century has been that corporations “belong” to shareholders and should pursue “shareholder value,” support for this approach, which has been justified as essential for managerial accountability, is eroding. It persists today primarily in the form of the argument that corporations should seek “long-term” shareholder value. Yet, as this Article shows, when shareholder value is interpreted to mean “long-term” shareholder value, it no longer offers the sought-after managerial accountability.What can? This Article argues that systems theory offers an answer. Systems theory is a well-developed design and performance measuring methodology routinely applied in fields such as engineering, biology, computer science, and environmental science. It provides an approach to understanding the nature and purpose of corporate entities that is not only consistent with elements of the many otherwise-conflicting visions of the corporation that have been developed, but also with important and otherwise difficult-to-explain features of corporate law and practice. It offers proven methods for measuring corporate performance that recognize the possibility of multiple goals and the importance of sustainability. And it cautions that, by ignoring the lessons of systems theory, shareholder value thinking may have encouraged regulatory and policy interventions into corporate governance that are not only ineffective, but destructive.

Consumer Awareness, Consumer Protection, Service Quality and Loyalty: The Case of Long-term Insurance Consumers in Namibia

2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (8) ◽  
pp. 172-189
Author(s):  
Magreth B Tjizumaue ◽  
Krishna Govender
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Consumer Protection ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Consumer Awareness ◽  
Growth And Survival ◽  
Term Insurance ◽  
Protection Legislation

Due to the absence of appropriate Consumer Protection legislation in Namibia, there seems to be a lack of consumer protection, which may result in consumers being exploited. Since the literature reveals that Consumer Awareness, Consumer Protection, Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction influence Customer Loyalty, the aforementioned relationship was explored among consumers of long-term insurance products in Namibia. The researcher embedded the study in the Services Marketing and User’s Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction theory and developed a framework for creating a more aware consumer and thus contribute to the growth and survival of the long-term insurance industry in Namibia.  A survey was conducted using a questionnaire, among a judgmental sample of 407 long-term insurance consumers in Namibia and Structural Equation Modelling was used to analyse (eight) hypothesized relationships among the research constructs alluded to in the title of this study. In summary, it was ascertained that if the customers are fully aware (have sufficient knowledge of the products and their consumer rights), they will feel protected against unfair business practices. Furthermore, if they perceive having received quality services, they are more likely to be satisfied with the service provider and will therefore, remain loyal.

Design and planning of the balanced scorecard: A case study

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-227
Author(s):  
Ming-Hon Hwang ◽  
Hsin Rau
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Balanced Scorecard ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Company Performance ◽  
Correct Process ◽  
The Balanced Scorecard ◽  
Strategy Planning ◽  
And Performance

In the industrial economy, evaluating company performance based on financial results was good enough. However, in the current globalized and highly competitive environment, maintaining long term competitiveness requires companies to engage in overall strategic planning and performance evaluation. The balanced scorecard is a tool or method for balancing an organization's performance and can react to situations where a company's direction becomes disoriented. This approach assists in strategy planning, process management, and performance evaluation from four perspectives, including financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. Good strategy planning provides companies with a correct management direction, correct process management ensures the efficient execution of plans, and correct performance evaluation illustrates the execution results. This study mainly focuses on how a large rubber company in Taiwan utilizes the balanced scorecard in its organization. As the technical perspective is important in the rubber keypad industry, besides the four above perspectives, this company has added the technical perspective. By introducing this company and its progress in implementing the balanced scorecard, this study hopes to provide other companies, especially rubber companies, with a planning direction and reference for the future implementation of the balanced scorecard.

Optimal adaptive inspection and maintenance for redundant systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 1748006X2110201
Author(s):  
Chaochao Lin ◽  
Matteo Pozzi
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Discounted Cost ◽  
Markov Decision ◽  
Inspection And Maintenance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Partially Observable ◽  
Series Systems ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Redundant Systems

Optimal exploration of engineering systems can be guided by the principle of Value of Information (VoI), which accounts for the topological important of components, their reliability and the management costs. For series systems, in most cases higher inspection priority should be given to unreliable components. For redundant systems such as parallel systems, analysis of one-shot decision problems shows that higher inspection priority should be given to more reliable components. This paper investigates the optimal exploration of redundant systems in long-term decision making with sequential inspection and repairing. When the expected, cumulated, discounted cost is considered, it may become more efficient to give higher inspection priority to less reliable components, in order to preserve system redundancy. To investigate this problem, we develop a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) framework for sequential inspection and maintenance of redundant systems, where the VoI analysis is embedded in the optimal selection of exploratory actions. We investigate the use of alternative approximate POMDP solvers for parallel and more general systems, compare their computation complexities and performance, and show how the inspection priorities depend on the economic discount factor, the degradation rate, the inspection precision, and the repair cost.

scholarly journals A Compact Muon Tracker for Dynamic Tomography of Density Based on a Thin Time Projection Chamber with Micromegas Readout

Particles ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-342
Author(s):  
Ignacio Lázaro Roche
Keyword(s):  
Time Projection Chamber ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Track Reconstruction ◽  
Long Term Stability ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Primary Signal ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Time Projection

Tomography based on cosmic muon absorption is a rising technique because of its versatility and its consolidation as a geophysics tool over the past decade. It allows us to address major societal issues such as long-term stability of natural and man-made large infrastructures or sustainable underwater management. Traditionally, muon trackers consist of hodoscopes or multilayer detectors. For applications with challenging available volumes or the wide field of view required, a thin time projection chamber (TPC) associated with a Micromegas readout plane can provide a good tradeoff between compactness and performance. This paper details the design of such a TPC aiming at maximizing primary signal and minimizing track reconstruction artifacts. The results of the measurements performed during a case study addressing the aforementioned applications are discussed. The current works lines and perspectives of the project are also presented.

Reduced volume and increased training intensity elevate muscle Na+-K+pump α2-subunit expression as well as short- and long-term work capacity in humans

2009 ◽  
Vol 107 (6) ◽  
pp. 1771-1780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Bangsbo ◽  
Thomas P. Gunnarsson ◽  
Jesper Wendell ◽  
Lars Nybo ◽  
Martin Thomassen
Keyword(s):  
Endurance Training ◽  
Muscle Protein ◽  
Work Capacity ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Muscle Adaptations ◽  
Subunit Expression ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Trained Runners

The present study examined muscle adaptations and alterations in work capacity in endurance-trained runners as a result of a reduced amount of training combined with speed endurance training. For a 6- to 9-wk period, 17 runners were assigned to either a speed endurance group with a 25% reduction in the amount of training but including speed endurance training consisting of six to twelve 30-s sprint runs 3–4 times/wk (SET group n = 12) or a control group ( n = 5), which continued the endurance training (∼55 km/wk). For the SET group, the expression of the muscle Na+-K+pump α2-subunit was 68% higher ( P < 0.05) and the plasma K+level was reduced ( P < 0.05) during repeated intense running after 9 wk. Performance in a 30-s sprint test and the first of the supramaximal exhaustive runs was improved ( P < 0.05) by 7% and 36%, respectively, after the speed endurance training period. In the SET group, maximal O2uptake was unaltered, but the 3-km (3,000-m) time was reduced ( P < 0.05) from 10.4 ± 0.1 to 10.1 ± 0.1 min and the 10-km (10,000-m) time was improved from 37.3 ± 0.4 to 36.3 ± 0.4 min (means ± SE). Muscle protein expression and performance remained unaltered in the control group. The present data suggest that both short- and long-term exercise performances can be improved with a reduction in training volume if speed endurance training is performed and that the Na+-K+pump plays a role in the control of K+homeostasis and in the development of fatigue during repeated high-intensity exercise.

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