bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The changing status of women in management in the public administration of Saudi Arabia
Authors: Rawaf Monirah 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper is a brief summarization of doctoral research which was recently completed by the author on conditions facing the modern Saudi Arabian woman in her efforts to become a part of the administrative structure of the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The first part of the paper is a brief historical account detailing women's participation in public administration and how it has evolved. The second concerns itself with those obstacles most commonly cited by female administrators as having an adverse impact on their job performance, motivation and advancement. The third and final section provides recommendations to ameliorate barriers and broaden opportunities for women working in positions in public management in Saudi Arabia.
The organization and management of ministries of education in small states
Authors: Bray Mark 
Published: July 2007

AbstractUntil recently, the literature on public administration has been almost exclusively based on the concerns and features of medium‐sized and large states. Few studies have addressed the special features of public administration in small states. This paper helps to redress this situation by focusing on Ministries of Education in small states. It is mainly based on a Commonwealth survey of 15 countries in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the Indian Ocean, Asia and the South Pacific. Among the questions addressed in the paper are ones on the range of functions undertaken by Ministries of Education and on such personnel matters as job definition and recruitment. The paper also examines issues of management in the highly personalized environment found in small states.
Institutional development in the era of economic policy reform: Concerns, contradictions and illustrations from Malawi
Authors: Hirschmann David 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe article argues that the essence of economic policy reform programmes—both their substance and their pace—runs counter to the central notions of sound institutional development. Attention is first given to some fundamental concerns about the relationship between the two processes, in particular focusing on questions of culture, speed of change and the political environment. The article then provides some illustrations from Malawi, looking in turn at collateral institutional damage, the new generation of semiautonomous organizations, confusing incentives systems in the areas of salaries, housing and training, and lack of serious concern for the sustainability of the reforms. The conclusion calls for returning ‘part‐ownership’ of the reform programme to the local officials, and trying to reduce some of the institutional unreality, which seems to adhere to the implementation of the reforms.
‘Successful African local government’: Some methodological and conceptual issues
Authors: Therkildsen Ole 
Published: July 2007

AbstractAttempts to identify and explain successful African local governments are made in a special issue of Public Administration and Development (Vol. 12, No. 1, 1992). These attempts are critically assessed, specifically the choice of indicators, the analysis of structures and actors, aggregation, and the role of political factors. It is argued that methodological and conceptual improvements in these areas are needed to advance the comparative study of African local government performance. Future studies should also pay more attention to equity, to resource mobilization from poor and declining economic bases, and to the impact of political pluralism.
Decentralization and accountability in the health sector from an international perspective: What are the choices?
Authors: Mills Anne 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis article reviews alternative decentralization policies for the health sector. It discusses the forms that decentralization can take, illustrating these with country examples. It then considers the choice of levels in a decentralization policy and the desirability of the creation of health boards or authorities. Decentralized authorities can be given differing levels of responsibility for different tasks: those considered here are revenue raising, policy‐making and planning, resource allocation, funding of service provision and interagency and intersec‐toral coordination. The article concludes by considering some criteria for evaluating decentralization approaches.
Civil service and democracy: Questions in reforming the civil service in eastern and central Europe
Authors: Ridley F. F. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe debate over public service reform is taking place at a time of flux when old models are being challenged everywhere. This article discusses issues of institutional transfer, as between western and east and central Europe, relative to civil service reform and democratisation. It presents several models to describe the place of the civil service in the democratic state and the implications of each for civil service organisation. It argues for a better balance between a legal approach, which tends to dominate advice coming from some continental European countries, and one which emphasises ‘good’ rather than just ‘correct’ relations between administration and citizens. This distinction is fundamental in so far as, under the UK Citizens Charter for example, the citizen is seen as a ‘customer’ rather than a mere ‘user’ of services he has no influence over. The article concludes that, given the differences in culture, political climate and economic situation of ‘recipient’ countries in east and central Europe, each must search for its own reforms, looking for questions rather than answers.
Theories of Gravitation
Authors: Sexl Roman U. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper presents a systematic study of the theories of gravitation that have been proposed. We restrict ourselves to an investigation of the linear approximation since new connections with experiment can be expected in this order in χ only.It turns out that all theories that differ from general relativity contain a scalar field and describe gravitation by a mixture of scalar and tensor interactions. The scalar has negative energy in theories with light deflection larger than the Einstein value. As a consequence instabilities of cosmic systems and continuous creation result in this case. Furthermore, the emission of gravitational radiation with negative energy could be the energy source of the quasars.The question of the mass renormalization of the scalar is investigated. No unique answer is possible at present.Finally a new class of gravitational theories is given.
Taguchi methods: Some technical, cultural and pedagogical perspectives
Authors: Goh T. N. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIt has been a decade since the term ‘Taguchi methods’ became part of the vocabulary of the quality profession in the West, particularly the U.S. The decade has also seen heated debates mounted by two distinct camps of professionals, one unfailingly extolling the new‐found virtues and power of Taguchi methods, while another persistently exposing the flaws and limitations inherent in them. Against this backdrop, this paper offers some pertinent perspectives on the subject for those who have to decide ‘to Taguchi, or not to Taguchi’ in personnel training and actual applications. Eventually, as for most issues, the middle ground seems to be the most sensible way out; however, the chosen course of action will be on much firmer ground if it is based on a good understanding of the interplay of factors underlying the controversies—‐technical, cultural and even pedagogical. For this reason such factors are highlighted in this paper in a non‐mathematical language for the benefit of decision makers and quality practitioners in industry who cannot afford to wade through the theoretical discourses in the literature, although academics may find some of the views expressed here by themselves subjects for further discussion and research.
Power‐temperature cycle accelerated testing
Authors: Hart Louis J. , Bruning Kipp L. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractTwo separate reliability models are proposed which one may wish to use to assess product performance. By combining stresses associated with traditional high temperature tests, temperature cycling tests and power cycling tests, we believe more representative and comprehensive reliability tests can be created. Although this understandably makes the models employed slightly more complex, the introduction of a step‐stress methodology compensates for this, thereby eliminating the requirement for additional test cells to determine the particular model's parameters. Estimates for the model parameters, or their associated acceleration factors relative to the normal use environment, will enable us to make accurate reliability predictions.
Economic tolerance design for quality
Authors: Jeang Angus 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper provides a few general mathematical models for determining product tolerances which minimize the combined manufacturing costs and quality loss. The models contain quality cost with a quadratic loss function and represent manufacturing costs with geometrical decay functions. The models are also formulated with multiple variables which represent the set of characteristics in a part. Applications of these models include minimizing the total cost with effective tolerance allocation in product design.
Write/erase degradation and disturb effects in source‐side injection flash eeprom devices
Authors: Wellekens Dirk , van Houdt Jan , Groeseneken Guido , Maes Herman E. , Faraone Lorenzo 
Published: July 2007

AbstractAn in‐depth analysis of the write/erase degradation of source‐side injection flash EEPROM devices is performed, which reveals two mechanisms underlying this degradation: a decrease of the charge per cycle on the floating gate, accompanied by the series effect of oxide and interface charges locally trapped above the channel. In addition, the main disturb effects are characterized and shown to be non‐critical for reliable cell operation.
Software safety initiatives
Authors: Keene Samuel J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper addresses system safety aspects of product development with primary application to the U.S.A. Department of Defense (DoD) development process. Software is recognized as an increasingly important element of system reliability and safety. This is due to two reasons: first, the amount of code used in products is growing at an exponential rate over time, and secondly, the criticality of the software encoded functions is increasing dramatically. Emphasis has correspondingly increased on software and system aspects of safety. This is in addition to the more traditional elements of hardware product safety. Design guides are offered that help ensure development of both reliable and safe software.
A connected spoken word recognition algorithm by augmented continuous DP matching
Authors: Nakagawa Sei‐Ichi 
Published: July 2007

AbstractBecause utterance duration differs even for the same words spoken by the same person, normalization for time variances is essential in any pattern matching method of speech recognition.Several methods have been proposed to date but there have been some drawbacks. We present herein a word spotting method using endpolnt‐free matching for input pattern with asymmetric DP path. A similar method proposed by Nakatsu et al. [8], is also discussed.
Fractal feature and texture analysis
Authors: Kaneko Hiroshi 
Published: July 2007

AbstractAlthough fractal dimension is popular in computer graphics, it is not yet utilized adequately in image analysis. Thus, this paper presents an example of the application of fractal dimension to image analysis. First, the conventional fractal concept is described and then the possibilities of its application to image processing are discussed. Then a new fractal feature is proposed which can be applied to general images. This is a localized, two‐dimensionalized concept of fractal dimension and is considered to have greater image‐analyzing capability than the conventional simple fractals. Next, these features are measured for texture images and their characters and image‐analyzing capabilities are investigated. The main results are as follows: (1) although the fractal dimension is known as a measure of complexity, its characters differ from the entropy or the variance; (2) the fractal dimension assumes unique value for each texture. Especially, if the newly proposed fractal feature is used, it is possible to recognize texture image to some extent.
A high‐speed dp‐matching algorithm based on frame synchronization, beam search and vector quantization
Authors: Sakoe Hiroaki , Fujii Hiromi , Yoshida Kazunaga , Watari Masao 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper discusses the high‐speed DP‐matching as the speech recognition algorithm including connected word sequence recognition. The first improvement is the frame synchronization. By this elaboration, an improvement of the speed by approximately one order of magnitude is achieved, compared with the consecutive word recognition of two‐level DP‐matching type, where DP‐matching is iterated by assuming that any time in the input speech can be the word boundary. The second improvement is the introduction of the beam search.This paper discusses the practical aspects of combining the beam search and DP‐matching. The discussion includes the construction of the work area, control of DP recursive expression and other problems, aiming at an effective reduction of the computational complexity for the recursive expression. The third improvement is the built‐in vector quantization. It is shown that an effective reduction of the computational complexity for the local distance can be produced through a skillful integration of the beam search and the vector quantization.Through an evaluation experiment for the discrete word, it is seen that there is a possibility of achieving the speed improvement by a factor of 30. This corresponds to the speed improvement of two or more orders of magnitude, compared with the two‐level DP‐matching for the consecutive word sequence recognition algorithm.
Pseudorandom pattern built‐in self‐test for embedded rams
Authors: Yamada Teruhiko , Nakajima Hiroshi 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe self‐test of built‐in RAMs is an excellent method to simplify the testing of VLSI. This paper considers the built‐in self‐test using the linear feedback shift registers on the pseudorandom input generator and the output signature analyzer. It is demonstrated that the method is useful in testing RAM embedded in VLSI. First, the random test required for testing the functional faults of RAM is analyzed, indicating that the random test can be applied to the embedded RAM. Then a built‐in self‐test for the embedded RAM using the linear feedback shift registers is proposed. Finally, the fault‐detection capability of the proposed test method is demonstrated by a computer simulation.
Phoneme segmentation expert system using spectrogram reading knowledge
Authors: Hatazaki Kaichiro , Komori Yasuhiro , Kawabata Takeshi , Shikano Kiyohiro 
Published: July 2007

AbstractA human expert is able to determine phoneme boundaries through spectrogram reading with high accuracy using one's knowledge and strategy. The authors developed a phoneme segmentation expert system which simulates a human expert spectrogram reading process using knowledge and strategy. This expert system detects phonemes from a continuous speech spectrogram and determines phoneme boundaries with their coarsely classified phoneme according to human expert knowledge and strategy which is described as rules. An assumption‐based inference with certainty factors and top‐down acoustic feature extraction under phoneme context hypotheses are incorporated into the expert system to simulate the phoneme contextual fuzzy knowledge and strategy used by a human expert. This framework makes it possible to deal with phoneme variations caused by coarticulation, and to extract accurate acoustic features on a spectrogram for phoneme segmentation. Japanese consonant segmentation knowledge currently is incorporated into the system which detected 90.8 percent of the phonemes correctly. In particular, the average alignment error of phoneme boundaries detected by the system was 5.8 ms, which is as accurate as those detected by a human expert.
Space interface device for artificial reality—SPIDAR
Authors: Sato Makoto , Hirata Yukihiro , Kawarada Hiroshi 
Published: July 2007

AbstractTo realize the human interface which efficiently models a three‐dimensional shape on a computer, it is necessary to provide an environment in which the shape model can be manipulated directly as the actual three‐dimensional object. Such an environment is called the virtual work space. In the human manipulation of an object by hand, such sensations as visual, tactile (touch), and force are utilized unconsciously.To compose the virtual work space, it is important that the human be given such sensory information in an integrated way. Such information must totally be generated artificially by computer processing. Based on such an idea, this paper proposes anew a space interface device called SPIDAR, as the I/O device needed in composing the virtual work space. The device functions to derive the information concerning the finger position and to provide the force sense information to the finger tip.The virtual work space for generation and manipulation of the three‐dimensional shape is composed using SPIDAR. An experiment is conducted to examine the effect of the force sense on the direct manipulation of the three‐dimensional shape in the virtual work space, and the usefulness of the method is verified.
Camouflage, Conspiracy, and Collaborators: Rumors of the Revolution
Authors: Pliskin Karen L. 
Published: July 2007

A well-educated, wealthy, 35-year-old woman from Tehran reported the following: “Someone I know has a man working for him whose brother is a gravedigger. He dug graves for those murdered in Jaleh Square 40 days ago. He said they needed a bulldozer to dig the ground for all the dead. An entire tent was filled with chadors. Fifty thousand people were killed.”The Jaleh Square incident of Tehran was a momentous event in the Iranian revolution, marking popular revolt against the shah's regime by the people, and retaliatory atrocities by the shah's army against the people. Although demonstrations and killings in other cities after Jaleh Square were no less dramatic, Jaleh Square remains in the minds of nearly everyone in Iran as the principal episode of innocent citizens slaughtered. Yet, details and facts pertaining to the event are undocumented. What is known is that thousands of people participated in a massive antishah demonstration on Thursday, September 7, 1978, to demand the resignation of the shah, defying a government ban on rallies.
Towards internal cohesion?
Authors: White Lynda , Hart Mark , Harvey Stephen 
Published: July 2007

Outline This paper focuses on the extent to which EU funding available under the Local Economic Development Measure of the Northern Ireland Single Programme (1994–99) has encouraged local government in Northern Ireland to adopt a new role in local economic development. It also considers whether the implementation of the Measure has effectively addressed its objectives of economic and social cohesion. It discusses the rationale for district council involvement and concludes that the local government structure in Northern Ireland requires adaptation to optimise the impact of the aid on offer.
Telecommunications and the local economy: Some emerging policy issues
Authors: Graham Stephen 
Published: July 2007

Outline This paper provides a brief overview of the issues which surround local economic development and telecommunications. The implications of telecommunications for urban and regional development in the present “information-based” era are outlined and the seven basic features of this development are described. Some necessary steps and conceptual approaches to developing specifically local development policies in this new area are then expounded by way of the development of a “framework for the local policy maker”. Finally, several leading attempts at developing locally controlled telecommunications infrastructures in the UK, as agents of economic and social development, are briefly analysed.
Local governance and urban prospects: The potential of City Pride
Authors: Williams Gwyndaf 
Published: July 2007

Outline The recent re-alignment of urban policy, involving the promotion of a diversity of public-private partnerships, a fostering of local business elites, and the increasing importance of city marketing and image reconstruction, all point in the direction of a "new localism" in urban regeneration. Focusing on the potential of the recent City Pride initiative in building up consensual and holistic "visions" of Britain's main cities, the following set of papers assess the role of the "urban prospectus" in fostering local coalitions and the benefits of mutuality in order to address issues of resource procurement and allocation. The potential of this new approach for targeting large-scale programme and project investment in the local economy, infrastructural priorities and aspects of social cohesion are all considered by the contributing authors, who look specifically at recent developments in London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Cable and local economic development: Local authority roles and responses
Authors: Gibbs David , Devins David , Hughes Geraint , Tanner Keith 
Published: July 2007

Outline There has been much recent comment about the development of the "information superhighway" and the opportunities that this will create for economic development. Yet elements of such a superhighway are already in place through the activities of cable companies in the UK This paper outlines the development of cable to date and examines the response of local authorities to such developments.
Re-forming Urban Regeneration? The practice and potential of English partnerships
Authors: Littlewood Stephen , Whitney David 
Published: July 2007

Outline English Partnerships has taken a central position in land regeneration and development. Ostensibly it has been allocated the resources, status and mechanisms to answer many of the criticisms that have been levelled at urban policy during the last decade. This paper looks at how the agency is pursuing its given role in the context of the changing features of urban regeneration, and what factors are determining its effectiveness
Youth unemployment in Northern Ireland
Authors: Armstrong David 
Published: July 2007

Summary Nearly one tenth (8 per cent) of each cohort of school leavers in Northern Ireland experience long spells of unemployment and inactivity (“Status 0”) between the ages of 16 and 18. This is important because many such young people are likely to end up unemployed and long-term unemployed in later life. In Northern Ireland around 15 per cent of the male workforce is unemployed, and around one half of these have been out of work for more than one year. This paper outlines the nature of the Status 0 experience amongst 16 and 17 year olds in Northern Ireland, and discusses three main aspects of policy which might guide the overall policy response in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Firstly, resources should be targeted carefully towards the most “at risk” young people, especially during the early stages of their progression through compulsory education. Secondly, relevant professionals should ensure that the most marginalised young people are not allowed to fall through the nets of mainstream provision and, in particular, every effort should be made to help young people avoid entering Status 0 immediately after leaving school. Thirdly, consideration should be given to the financial incentives faced by training providers in terms of recruiting low achievers who are at most risk of entering Status 0. There is some evidence to suggest that many of the existing incentives in Northern Ireland are inadequate and, in some cases, may exacerbate many of the problems faced by marginalised young people.