An evaluation of consumer participation in hospital breast services

Community expectations and research demonstrate that consumers play an important role in shaping services for women with breast cancer. Consumer contribution has been mandated recently in Victoria, Australia, to ensure the inclusion of consumer involvement in the planning and decision‐making processes within health organizations. As part of the redevelopment of breast services in Victoria, Southern Health has been funded to plan local improvements to care co‐ordination for women diagnosed with breast cancer in the southern metropolitan area of Melbourne. The establishment of effective consumer participation in breast services is an integral aspect of this project and a range of initiatives has been undertaken to achieve meaningful consumer involvement including the appointment of a consumer advisor; appointment of staff with extensive knowledge in women's health and community development to the project; establishment of a consumer reference group; and plans made to improve the receptivity of health service systems to consumer input. A preliminary evaluation of this ongoing project has indicated that a productive role for consumers in service practice review and policy and planning activities has been established and some change and engagement of staff has occurred. There is still work to be done to promote the involvement of a wider range of health professionals and to increase the level of trust between consumers and staff.     

Formalising Workflow: A CCS-inspired Characterisation of the YAWL Workflow Patterns

We present work concerning the formal specification of business processes. It is of substantial benefit to be able to pin down the meaning of business processes precisely. This is an end in itself, but we are also concerned to do so in order that we might prove properties about the business processes that are being specified. It is a notable characteristic of most languages for representing business processes that they lack a robust semantics, and a notable characteristic of most commercial Business Process Management products that they have no support for verification of business process models. We define a high-level meta-model, called Liesbet , for representing business processes. The ontological commitments for Liesbet are sourced from the YAWL workflow patterns, which have been defined from studies into the behavioural nature of business processes. A formal characterisation of Liesbet is provided using Milner’s Calculus of Communicating Systems (CCS). In this article, we omit some of the technical details of this characterisation and instead present the essential features by means of an abstract machine language, called LCCS. We also explain how we have facilitated the verification of certain properties of business processes specified in Liesbet , and discuss how Liesbet supports the YAWL workflow patterns. We include a simple three-part example of using Liesbet .     

Social Embeddedness in Electronic Negotiations

This study contributes to electronic negotiation research by analyzing the role of social embeddedness of actors in a controlled laboratory experiment. In particular, we analyze the effect of prior negotiator relationship in different conflict levels in web-based negotiations. We hypothesize that with increasing intensity of conflicts, negotiators who have a personal relationship use more value creating strategies compared to anonymous negotiators. As a consequence, we also hypothesize to find fewer impasses in electronic negotiations involving subjects who are socially embedded. Our results confirm that, in fact, in severe conflicts socially embedded actors reach significantly more agreements than subjects of the control group while such an effect is not found in weak conflict situations. These findings are related to more yielding between embedded actors but not to more value creating behavior. From these results, we can conclude that socially embedded negotiators better manage to reach agreements in difficult situations. Furthermore, an institutionalized pre-negotiation phase which allows negotiators to establish a personal relationship can counteract the threat of impasses.     

Lord Acton and Employment Doctrines: Absolute Power and the Spread of At-Will Employment

This study analyzes the at-will employment doctrine using a tool that encompasses the complementarity of results-based utilitarian ethics, rule-based duty ethics, and virtue-based character ethics. The paper begins with a discussion of the importance of the problem followed by its evolution and current status. After describing the method of analysis, the central section evaluates the employment at-will doctrine, and is informed by Lord Acton’s dictum, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The conclusion explores the implications of the findings. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the World Ethics Forum, Oxford University, Oxford, UK April 9–12, 2006.     

AIS系统中GMSK的调制解调

从AIS基带处理模块的研究出发，系统地介绍了GMSK调制解调的原理，在System View仿真平台上设计出一套GMSK调制解调的算法，效果良好，在AIS应答机中得到了充分的应用。     

The Effect of Moral Intensity on Ethical Judgment

Following an extensive review of the moral intensity literature, this article reports the findings of two studies (one between-subjects, the other within-subject) that examined the effect of manipulated and perceived moral intensity on ethical judgment. In the between-subjects study participants judged actions taken in manipulated high moral intensity scenarios to be more unethical than the same actions taken in manipulated low moral intensity scenarios. Findings were mixed for the effect of perceived moral intensity. Both probable magnitude of consequences (a factor consisting of magnitude of consequences, probability of effect, and temporal immediacy) and social consensus had a significant effect; proximity did not. In the within-subject study manipulated moral intensity had a significant effect on ethical judgment, but perceived moral intensity did not. Regression of ethical judgment on age, gender, major, and the three perceived moral intensity factors was significant between-subjects, but not within-subject. Ethical judgment was found to be a more robust predictor of intention than perceived moral intensity using a within-subject design. Joan M. McMahon is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Luter School of Business at Christopher Newport University, teaching courses in Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Human Resources. She has a B.A. in Speech from the State University of New York, College at Oneonta; an M. Ed. in Early Childhood Education from James Madison University; and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Robert J. Harvey is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He has a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Ohio State University. Dr. Harvey has authored a number of articles in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Personality Assessment, Personnel Psychology, and others. He is the author of the chapter on job analysis in the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.     

Creating a satisfying internet shopping experience via atmospheric variables

The purpose of this research was to identify the atmospheric variables that contributed to satisfaction for internet consumers with different orientations toward shopping. Atmospheric categories that were proposed for studying internet environments included external and internal variables, layout and design, point‐of‐purchase, and customer services. Some consumers had a convenience orientation toward shopping on the internet, while others were apprehensive, apathetic, and highly involved in internet shopping. A segment of internet consumers also exhibited positive orientations toward store shopping. Results showed that some atmospheric variables influenced satisfaction for all consumers, regardless of their shopping orientation; however, some variables were contributors of satisfaction for specific shopping segments.