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"Johnny Sung and David Ashton are two of the leading scholars in the area of skills. This book combines challenging theories with cutting edge research in a way that should bring skills to life for students. I strongly recommend it for anyone researching or studying in this area." - Irena Grugulis, Leeds University Business School "A much needed contribution to the complex debate of how skills can best be utilised to enhance company performance, with particular emphasis on an innovative sectoral approach. It is a model of clarity in its presentation of the authors’ conceptual models using a historical narrative as well as comparative case studies in both the UK and Singapore." - Bert Clough, Leeds University Business School Public skills policy in most market economies in the last forty years made one repeated error, time and again. We seem to be unable to learn from those mistakes. Consistently, public policies view a wide range of economic and social issues e.g. low productivity, low-skilled jobs, low wage, inequality and in-work poverty as the consequence of skills deficits and a lack of qualifications held by individual workers. Whilst mis-diagnosing the source of the problems and failing to deliver any effective change, public skills policies continue with a policy prescription of ‘more skills’ and ‘more degrees’. If we have not solved the problems with this decade-old approach, why should the same medicine work this time? This book examines the role of public skills policy from a completely different perspective. It starts by challenging the lack of a systematic analysis of the link between skills utilisation and business strategy, and provides a new model for fresh thinking. The book extends this theoretical analysis to examine the implications for the sectoral approach to skills development as a more effective form of public skills policy. David N. Ashton is Emeritus Professor at the University of Leicester and Honorary Professor at Cardiff University. Jo

A semi-structured interview was conducted with administrators within four separate federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) that previously achieved level 3 patient-centered medical home (PCMH) recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). It was hypothesized that these organizations may be able to share valuable lessons with other sites who are interested in pursuing NCQA-PCMH recognition. A qualitative framework analysis was performed, revealing various themes and sub-themes including reasons for seeking recognition, organizational performance improvements, diagnosis of approach, effectiveness of approach and overall lessons learned. Difficulties reported include interpretation of NCQA standards, data collection and reporting, patient engagement, restructuring of personnel responsibilities and emphasizing the importance of gaining participation throughout the organization.^

Fisheries and aquaculture are major contributors of nutrition and animal protein worldwide. Understanding the genetic variation and differentiation within and between wild populations is important for both sustainable fisheries management and selection of aquaculture broodstock. This study determined the genetic variation and differentiation of New Zealand Pagrus auratus based on mitochondrial DNA control region sequencing and microsatellite DNA genotyping. Low but significant differentiation was measured between several sample sites, but otherwise the population was genetically panmictic. The M-ratio test and Fu’s Fs statistics indicate that there may have been historical bottlenecks at all sample sites and a more recent bottleneck in the Tasman Bay. Two South Island sites were identified that had not been through recent bottlenecks and were not significantly differentiated from the Tasman Bay, which may provide a source of gene flow to aid its genetic recovery. Comparison of the broodstock and wild genetic variation indicate that the broodstock represented most of the genetic variation found in high frequency in wild populations, but further wild-caught individuals may be needed, based on the criteria used in several previous studies. Simulations indicate that adding approximately 20 and 48 wild-caught individuals from multiple populations to the current broodstock was needed to represent all genetic variation above a target frequency of 0.05 in the Tasman Bay and all sample sites, respectively.

Existing empirical evidence suggests that residual income valuation models based on historical cost accounting considerably underestimate equity values. One possible explanation is the use of historical cost accounting under inflationary conditions. In this paper, we use a residual income framework to explore theoretically how historical cost accounting numbers need to be adjusted for inflation in forecasting and valuation. We demonstrate that even in a simple setting where inflation is running at a relatively low level, residual income models are likely to produce severe under-valuations if inflation is not properly taken into account. We use simulated data to reinforce our theoretical findings and to illustrate the difficulties that empirical investigators face working within the confines imposed by real data.

Briefing charts from presentation on the integration of ISTAR systems., See also ADM001711 Meeting C4ISTAR Requirements: Implementing and Exploiting Technology Solutions. The original document contains color images. Report contains briefing charts only.