New organizational structures: skill implications for professionals

Many writers predict that emerging new organizational structures will displace the traditional hierarchical structures. This paper looks at the skill implications for ‘professionals’ as these changes take place. It presents data gathered from a series of structured group discussions conducted with managers and professionals in the UK retail financial services sector (banking, insurance and mortgage lending) to illustrate how changing structures are impacting on ‘professional’ skills and roles. Six key trends, identified in the group discussions, are examined in the light of models which predict the way ‘professionals’ will be managed over the next few years. These trends are illustrated by short case examples or vignettes.     

Comparisons of changepoint estimators

Statistical comparisons of several nonparametric changepoint estimators which are currently offered in the literature are undertaken. The criteria for comparison are Pitman nearness, probability concentration and mean squared error. Recommendations for small, moderate and large sample cases are given.     

On estimating a function of the mean of a multivariate normal distribution

The unique minimum variance of unbiased estimator is obtained for analysis functions of the mean of a multivariate normal distribution with either unknown covariance matrix or with covariance matrix of the form σ²v where σ² is unknown.     

Selecting the precision parameter prior in Dirichlet process mixture models

We consider Dirichlet process mixture models in which the observed clusters in any particular dataset are not viewed as belonging to a finite set of possible clusters but rather as representatives of a latent structure in which objects belong to one of a potentially infinite number of clusters. As more information is revealed the number of inferred clusters is allowed to grow. The precision parameter of the Dirichlet process is a crucial parameter that controls the number of clusters. We develop a framework for the specification of the hyperparameters associated with the prior for the precision parameter that can be used both in the presence or absence of subjective prior information about the level of clustering. Our approach is illustrated in an analysis of clustering brands at the magazine Which?. The results are compared with the approach of Dorazio (2009) via a simulation study.     

Health,Leisure, and Life Cycle: A Gender Approach in the Tropics

Costa Rican women make use of more types of medicines than men, which is partially explained by females´ higher incidence of stress-related symptoms, multiple roles, and little leisure time. These results are based on 2003, 2004, and 2005 surveys on medication use in Costa Rica. It adds a new country case to the broad existing literature on gender and health, which makes the existing hypotheses more robust and provides insights for future research.     

Optimising the queuing system for an ear, nose and throat outpatient clinic

Several authors have considered the problem of the efficient running of hospital outpatient clinics. The first solution was probably by Welch & Bailey (1952). More recent authors include Fetter & Thompson (1966), Vissers (1979), Stafford & Aggarwal (1979). The Ear, Nose and Throat outpatient clinic presents a special case due to the complex queuing structure involved, which is described in the next section. A simulation of this special clinic was undertaken, any useful theoretical results being impossible to obtain.