‘Howzat’—how do artefacts without matter,matter? The case of decision review systems in professional cricket

It has been argued that the social and material worlds are increasingly entangled as they become mediated by and experienced through virtual representations of live events. Virtual decision review systems in professional sport provide an albeit unusual case study example of such developments where virtual (re‐)representations of events are increasingly used in match play to inform adjudicator decisions concerning ‘what really happened’. This has prompted an ongoing debate in many sports over both the accuracy and appropriateness of these technologies for representing events which are often fast moving and difficult to judge with the human eye. We explore these issues using a sociomaterial practice lens and indicate the broader relevance of the case for basing judgements and decisions on virtual views of reality.     

Forecasting the Malmquist productivity index

The Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) suggests a convenient way of measuring the productivity change of a given unit between two consequent time periods. Until now, only a static approach for analyzing the MPI was available in the literature. However, this hides a potentially valuable information given by the evolution of productivity over time. In this paper, we introduce a dynamic procedure for forecasting the MPI. We compare several approaches and give credit to a method based on the assumption of circularity. Because the MPI is not circular, we present a new decomposition of the MPI, in which the time-varying indices are circular. Based on that decomposition, a new working dynamic forecasting procedure is proposed and illustrated. To construct prediction intervals of the MPI, we extend the bootstrap method in order to take into account potential serial correlation in the data. We illustrate all the new techniques described above by forecasting the productivity index of 17 OECD countries, constructed from their GDP, labor and capital stock.     

Determination oder Intereffikation?

The article deals with the implicit premises of two hypotheses about the relationship between public relations and journalism and rejects them in part. Especially the hypothesis that public relations determines the media agenda unnecessarily implies basic assumptions which are either too restrictive or ideologically motivated. Moreover, there is less empirical support for this hypothesis than its popularity among communication scientists would suggest. In the studies examined, the percentage of subsidized stories in the press varied between 18 to 65. The model of intereffication describes the relationship between PR and journalism more adequately, but it does not work, in contrast to its claims, at a functional systems level. To illustrate the heuristic potential of both hypotheses, the Westley/MacLean model for communications research is adapted to the transmission of PR messages via the mass media.     

人道主义救援：如何化难为简

航空货运业在救灾方面所扮演的，角色一直备受称道，设想一下，向面带菜色的灾民发放救济品可是功德无量的事情。Maximus公司的CEO FathiBuhazza曾这样表示：“我们都是尽可能达到目的地，这事关生死。”物流企业Agility公司负责人道救援项目的经理Frank Clary表示：“我们有两个层次的客户，一面是救援组织，另一面则是接受救援的人员。     

Facilitating reef tourism management through an innovative importance-performance analysis method

This study presents a quantitative analysis of visitor satisfaction and its relation to tourism attributes on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. It applies a modified version of the importance-performance analysis to determine various attributes’ range of impact on, and asymmetrical contribution to, visitor satisfaction. The analysis of 369 visitor surveys identified a complex relationship between satisfaction and environmental, operational and customer service attributes. It also identified those attributes which have a strong satisfaction-generating potential when they perform well, such as the diversity of the marine life, interactions with other passengers, comfort of the boat, quality of the entertainment, knowledgeable crew, quality of the information provided and the destination of the trip, and attributes with a high dissatisfaction-generating potential when they perform poorly, e.g. customer service, comfort of the trip, weather, quality of the coral, and cost of the trip. The study also considers the use of attribute-based studies of satisfaction within protected-area tourism and the management of visitor experiences.     

新飞机的大问题

空客公司经过无数次调研之后,总算正式推出了A380这个全球最大的飞机。尽管当时有部分客户提出需要得到全货机型号,但是在一开始设计时,空客公司并没有过多考虑货机的改型问题。空客已经表示货机型号依然有潜力,只是该型飞机实际上机腹运力相对小,对货运而言并非最佳。该型飞机投入运营后已经＂迫使＂部分货运公司增加了全货机服务和变更了航班时刻。     

Networks of queues with infinite servers in each node applied to the management of a two echelons repair system

After a report of results about infinite servers queues, essentially on its busy period, a model is built, using networks of queues with infinite servers in each node, to study a two echelons repair system for example of a fleet of aircraft, shipping or trucks. The customers are the failures, and their service time is the time that goes from the instant at which they occur till they are completely repaired. The failing repairs occur in a base or in a remote station. The whole failures detected in the base are repaired there. Some of the failures detected in the station are repaired there and the others in the base. The results referred above allow the determination of a two echelons repair system performance measures. In this application, models of Carrillo （1991） and Ferreira （1996） are considered, improved and completed. The theory is illustrated with a numerical example.     

Comparing NHS Hospital Unit Costs

Efforts to improve the efficiency of the hospital sector in the National Health Service (NHS) have concentrated on measuring the unit costs of service provision. Hospitals identified as having high unit costs are considered poor performers. Several indices have been constructed to measure unit costs. These produce conflicting messages: hospitals with relatively high unit costs as measured using one index may have low unit costs according to another index. Furthermore, the publication of cost information may lead to unintended consequences and perverse behaviour, rather than genuine performance improvements. To get a more accurate picture of performance, cost information should be included within a broader performance assessment framework for hospitals.