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Complex World (complex + world)
Selected AbstractsCLUMSY SOLUTIONS FOR A COMPLEX WORLD: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGEPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 4 2006MARCO VERWEIJ Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. ,Clumsy solutions', policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved , are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming. [source] Quality and Safety in a Complex World: Why Systems Science Matters to Otolaryngologists,THE LARYNGOSCOPE, Issue 10 2004David W. Roberson MD Almost all modern medical care is delivered in the setting of many overlapping systems. Each system may consist of multiple providers and in most cases electronic and mechanical components. Even "simple" outpatient care is delivered by teams of providers, administrators, and devices. Critically ill inpatients are cared for in extraordinarily complex systems with hundreds of human and non-human elements. The science of complex systems has exploded in recent decades, and there is a large body of knowledge about how such systems function effectively or ineffectively. Many principles of systems science are simple to understand and apply, but few Otolaryngologists are well educated about them. A basic knowledge of systems science will greatly improve the Otolaryngologist's ability to function in complex health care systems and to provide the best care for his or her patients. [source] The discipline of improvement: something old, something new?JOURNAL OF NURSING MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2004Charlotte L. Clarke BA, PGCE In response to calls to improve the efficacy of health care services, there is an increasing focus on the processes of achieving a continuous improvement of services and practices. One specific response is that of the NHS Modernization Agency and National Health Service University in relation to the Discipline of Improvement in Health and Social Care. This paper draws on a study that explored the underpinning knowledge base of the Discipline of Improvement and focuses on describing the framework that was developed. The two-dimensional framework is composed of five primary categories, which cross-link to 11 competencies. The study concludes that the Discipline of Improvement draws together a group of ideas that together cohere to form a distinctive model to aid the improvement of health care. While some of these ideas are well-established, the way in which the Discipline of Improvement makes connections between them offers something new to our understanding of change in the complex world of health care provision, and to nursing management. [source] Entrepreneurship Research Today and Beyond: Hidden in Plain Sight!JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2010Ramona K. Zachary The field of entrepreneurship and its research has reached an critical and invigorating juncture. Researchers are challenged to be comprehensive, varied, and innovative in their approaches to the study of entrepreneurship. New and emerging future research must met this challenge to impact and sustain our complex world in which entrepreneurship plays such a vital role. The Entrepreneurship Research Journal provides a new and exciting venue for researchers to share and interact among their respective disciplines in new and different ways and to meet the research challenges now and in the future. [source] Setting performance standards for medical practice: a theoretical frameworkMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 5 2001L Southgate Background The assessment of performance in the real world of medical practice is now widely accepted as the goal of assessment at the postgraduate level. This is largely a validity issue, as it is recognised that tests of knowledge and in clinical simulations cannot on their own really measure how medical practitioners function in the broader health care system. However, the development of standards for performance-based assessment is not as well understood as in competency assessment, where simulations can more readily reflect narrower issues of knowledge and skills. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the development of standards that reflect the more complex world in which experienced medical practitioners work. Methods The paper reflects the combined experiences of a group of education researchers and the results of literature searches that included identifying current health system data sources that might contribute information to the measurement of standards. Conclusion Standards that reflect the complexity of medical practice may best be developed through an ,expert systems' analysis of clinical conditions for which desired health care outcomes reflect the contribution of several health professionals within a complex, three-dimensional, contextual model. Examples of the model are provided, but further work is needed to test validity and measurability. [source] What every community college leader needs to know: Building leadership for international educationNEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, Issue 138 2007George R. Boggs This chapter focuses on issues that community college leaders constantly grapple with to ensure that their graduates are globally educated and able to work and succeed in an independent and complex world. It also describes major obstacles that limit and confine international education and suggests strategies to overcome these obstacles. [source] Superperformance: A new theory for optimizationPERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT, Issue 5 2008Dave Guerra This article examines a new framework for managing and leading that provides an astonishingly simple path forward through today's complex world of work, introducing a new paradigm for optimizing both organizations and individuals. Superperformance emerges when process and passion merge to become one. The discovery of superperformance points to the incontrovertible need for a new management science. [source] Thirty years of social accounting, reporting and auditing: what (if anything) have we learnt?BUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 1 2001Rob Gray In an increasingly complex world with increasingly powerful organisations it seems inevitable that society , or groups in society , would become anxious about whether these organisations could be encouraged to match that power with an appropriate responsibility. This is the function of accountability , to require individuals and organisations to present an account of those actions for which society holds them , or would wish to hold them , responsible. And the history of social accounting, at its most fundamental, is a history of attempts to develop this accountability. It seems to me that the widespread and systematic practice of social and environmental accounting is a deeply essential element in any well-functioning, complex democracy. The corollary is that the absence of such mechanisms raises fundamental questions about the nature of modern democracies. This article briefly outlines what I believe to be the three strands of social accounting. It then identifies a few of the lessons that we may be able to learn from current experience and, in particular, how social accounting is related to accountability, democracy and sustainability. The central issue of the tension between accountability and control is touched upon: I then illustrate how the stakeholder model can be used to help define the social account, and conclude with a few words on attestation. [source] Conquering the complex world of human septins: implications for health and diseaseCLINICAL GENETICS, Issue 6 2010EA Peterson Peterson EA and Petty EM. Conquering the complex world of human septins: implications for health and disease. Septins are highly conserved filamentous proteins first characterized in budding yeast and subsequently identified in must eukaryotes. Septins can bind and hydrolyze GTP, which is intrinsically related to their formation of septin hexamers and functional protein interactions. The human septin family is composed of 14 loci, SEPT1-SEPT14, which encode dozens of different septin proteins. Their central GTPase and polybasic domain regions are highly conserved but they diverge in their N-terminus and/or C-terminus. The mechanism by which the different isoforms are generated is not yet well understood, but one can hypothesize that the use of different promoters and/or alternative splicing could give rise to these variants. Septins perform diverse cellular functions according to tissue expression and their interacting partners. Functions identified to date include cell division, chromosome segregation, protein scaffolding, cellular polarity, motility, membrane dynamics, vesicle trafficking, exocytosis, apoptosis, and DNA damage response. Their expression is tightly regulated to maintain proper filament assembly and normal cellular functions. Alterations of these proteins, by mutation or expression changes, have been associated with a variety of cancers and neurological diseases. The association of septins with cancer results from alterations of expression in solid tumors or translocations in leukemias [mixed lineage leukemia (MLL)]. Expression changes in septins have also been associated with neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, as well as retinopathies, hepatitis C, spermatogenesis and Listeria infection. Pathogenic mutations of SEPT9 were identified in the autosomal dominant neurological disorder hereditary neuralgic amyotrophy (HNA). Human septin research over the past decade has established their importance in cell biology and human disease. Further functional characterization of septins is crucial to our understanding of their possible diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic applications. [source] | |||||||||||||