Andrew B. Stafford and Jonathan Hobson
There has been a widespread move in England’s city centres to a business crime reduction partnership (BCRP) model that welcomes businesses from all commercial sectors and that…
Abstract
Purpose
There has been a widespread move in England’s city centres to a business crime reduction partnership (BCRP) model that welcomes businesses from all commercial sectors and that operate during day time and night time trading hours, and that seeks to tackle a broad range of crimes and associated behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether this new holistic approach offers benefits that narrower models do not.
Design/methodology/approach
This study draws upon data from a multi-year examination of the Gloucester City Safe BCRP, including quantitative analysis of 4,523 offences recorded by the partnership and qualitative analysis of 149 interviews with its members.
Findings
In Gloucester there was a small minority of offenders who commit offences against more than one type of business, who offend during both the day time and night time trading hours and who commit more than one type of offence. There is value, therefore, in partnerships bringing together businesses from different commercial sectors and that operate in the day and night time economies to coordinate their efforts to tackle such activity.
Practical implications
Sharing information among partnership members via e-mail and secure web-based platforms helps raise awareness concerning offenders and the offences that they commit which in turn can be used to prevent offences from occurring.
Social implications
This inclusive holistic BCRP model can lead to an increased sense of community cohesion for its members arising from the collective effort of multiple types of businesses.
Originality/value
The authors are not aware of other studies that have considered these issues.
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Presents a personalized biographical note of reminiscences and reflections about Stafford Beer. Contains detailed references to his early days in cybernetics, his work at Sigma, a…
Abstract
Presents a personalized biographical note of reminiscences and reflections about Stafford Beer. Contains detailed references to his early days in cybernetics, his work at Sigma, a consultancy firm in science and general management, and the important phase in Beer's life in Chile. Looks at its aftermath and comments on his activities in recent years. Discusses Beer's contributions to science together with ethics and his sense of mission. Includes notes on the subject's approach to mysticism, poetry, and his artistic creativity. Lists some criticisms and a brief concluding summary.
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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and…
Abstract
This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.
Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.
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This paper explores the history of Stafford Beer's work in management cybernetics, from his early conception and simulation of an adaptive automatic factory and associated…
Abstract
This paper explores the history of Stafford Beer's work in management cybernetics, from his early conception and simulation of an adaptive automatic factory and associated experimentation in biological computing, through the development of the Viable System Model and the Team Syntegrity technique for discussion and planning. It also pursues Beer into the fields of micro‐ and macropolitics and spirituality. The aim is to show that all of Beer's projects can be understood as specific instantiations and workings out of a cybernetic ontology of unknowability and becoming: a stance that recognises that the world can always surprise us and that we can never dominate it through knowledge. The thrust of Beer's work was, thus, to construct systems that could adapt performatively to environments they could not fully control.
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It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields…
Abstract
It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.
This paper sets out to draw on the insights of “Stafford Beer, the whole man” as portrayed within the Stafford Beer Archive at Liverpool John Moores University.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper sets out to draw on the insights of “Stafford Beer, the whole man” as portrayed within the Stafford Beer Archive at Liverpool John Moores University.
Design/methodology/approach
After reviewing these seminal contributions, the authors seek to use evidence from published texts, restricted documents, and from personal conversations to present how he operated as a practitioner, reflecting on the craft of how he explored the nature of novel situations, performing the simultaneous roles of guide, philosopher and friend.
Findings
The authors attempt to present a perspective of Stafford Beer's (SB) particular contributions to the discipline of management science as an opportunity to the profession for renewal and development, in particular, around managerial cybernetics.
Practical implications
The final section presents the passion of the authors that the archive should be dedicated to a “living connection” as Stafford had wished.
Originality/value
This study articulately flags up SB's contribution to management science.
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Lisa Wood, Nicholas J.R. Wood, Shannen Vallesi, Amanda Stafford, Andrew Davies and Craig Cumming
Homelessness is a colossal issue, precipitated by a wide array of social determinants, and mirrored in substantial health disparities and a revolving hospital door. Connecting…
Abstract
Purpose
Homelessness is a colossal issue, precipitated by a wide array of social determinants, and mirrored in substantial health disparities and a revolving hospital door. Connecting people to safe and secure housing needs to be part of the health system response. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This mixed-methods paper presents emerging findings from the collaboration between an inner city hospital, a specialist homeless medicine GP service and Western Australia’s inaugural Housing First collective impact project (50 Lives 50 Homes) in Perth. This paper draws on data from hospitals, homelessness community services and general practice.
Findings
This collaboration has facilitated hospital identification and referral of vulnerable rough sleepers to the Housing First project, and connected those housed to a GP and after hours nursing support. For a cohort (n=44) housed now for at least 12 months, significant reductions in hospital use and associated costs were observed.
Research limitations/implications
While the observed reductions in hospital use in the year following housing are based on a small cohort, this data and the case studies presented demonstrate the power of care coordinated across hospital and community in this complex cohort.
Practical implications
This model of collaboration between a hospital and a Housing First project can not only improve discharge outcomes and re-admission in the shorter term, but can also contribute to ending homelessness which is itself, a social determinant of poor health.
Originality/value
Coordinated care between hospitals and programmes to house people who are homeless can significantly reduce hospital use and healthcare costs, and provides hospitals with the opportunity to contribute to more systemic solutions to ending homelessness.
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The traditional approach to AI is limited because it fails to exploit continuity. The reliance on discrete logic has allowed the rapid initial advance of the subject, but…
Abstract
The traditional approach to AI is limited because it fails to exploit continuity. The reliance on discrete logic has allowed the rapid initial advance of the subject, but constitutes an inherent deficiency. The limitations have become apparent, and are generally acknowledged by a revival of interest in neural‐net, or connectionist, techniques. This approach has become feasible because of technical developments allowing large‐scale parallel operation. Lessons can be learned by considering the evolution of natural intelligence. Recent studies from a biological viewpoint suggest that this has some unexpected features. The idea of concept formation should be extended to include quantifiable concepts, similar to the semantic variables of fuzzy set theory.