Brunel University London

About: Brunel University London is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Large Hadron Collider & Population. The organization has 10918 authors who have published 29515 publications receiving 893330 citations. The organization is also known as: Brunel & University of Brunel.

Power in Discourse: The Case of Arguments on a British Talk Radio Show

Abstract: This article presents an approach to exploring the ways in which power functions in institutional discourse. The principal aim of the article is to show how the play of power in discourse can be analysed from the fundamentally local, sequential perspective of conversation analysis. I argue that power is best seen as a shifting distribution of resources which enable some participants locally to achieve interactional effects not available to others. Using calls to a British talk radio show as a case study, I show how these resources are linked to the interactional and technological organization of participation in the setting.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in a population-based study of male breast cancer

Abstract: Background The contribution of BRCA1 and BRCA2 to the incidence of male breast cancer (MBC) in the United Kingdom is not known, and the importance of these genes in the increased risk of female breast cancer associated with a family history of breast cancer in a male first-degree relative is unclear.

Modeling emergency departments using discrete event simulation techniques

Abstract: This paper discusses the application of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) for modeling the operations of an Emergency Department (ED). The model was developed to help the ED managers understand the behavior of the system with regard to the hidden causes of excessive waiting times. It served as a tool for assessing the impact of major departmental resources on Key Performance Indicators, and was also used as a cost effective method for testing various what-if scenarios for possible system improvement. The study greatly enhanced managers' understanding of the system and how patient flow is influenced by process changes and resource availability. The results of this work also helped managers to either reverse or modify some proposed changes to the system that were previously being considered. The results also show a possible reduction of more than 20% in patients' waiting times.

Position-Transitional Particle Swarm Optimization-incorporated Latent Factor Analysis

Abstract: High-dimensional and sparse (HiDS) matrices are frequently found in various industrial applications. A latent factor analysis (LFA) model is commonly adopted to extract useful knowledge from an HiDS matrix, whose parameter training mostly relies on a stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm. However, an SGD-based LFA model's learning rate is hard to tune in real applications, making it vital to implement its self-adaptation. To address this critical issue, this study firstly investigates the evolution process of a particle swarm optimization algorithm with care, and then proposes to incorporate more dynamic information into it for avoiding accuracy loss caused by premature convergence without extra computation burden, thereby innovatively achieving a novel position-transitional particle swarm optimization (P2SO) algorithm. It is subsequently adopted to implement a P2SO-based LFA (PLFA) model that builds a learning rate swarm applied to the same group of LFs. Thus, a PLFA model implements highly efficient learning rate adaptation as well as represents an HiDS matrix precisely. Experimental results on four HiDS matrices emerging from real applications demonstrate that compared with an SGD-based LFA model, a PLFA model no longer suffers from a tedious and expensive tuning process of its learning rate to achieve higher prediction accuracy for missing data.

Organizational Learning in Multinationals: R&D Networks of Japanese and US MNEs in the UK*

Abstract: The institutional approach treats organizational forms and behaviour as contingent upon institutions that are durable and socially embedded and so several authors have argued that the nature and modes of operation of multinational enterprises (MNEs) vary according to their national origins. This paper examines the ways in which national patterns of organization and innovation affect Japanese and US MNEs' global R&D networks and transnational learning, based on case studies of their R&D laboratories in the UK. In particular, it focuses on how these MNEs tap into foreign academic knowledge base and scientific labour through collaborative links with higher education institutions. Relative to many Japanese MNEs, US firms have developed a greater organizational capacity for coordinating globally dispersed learning and embedding themselves in local innovation networks because the liberal institutional environment within which US MNEs have developed enables them to extend their organizational and human resource systems across institutional and geographical boundaries. By contrast, Japanese MNEs appear to be more limited in their transnational learning because of the much more tightly integrated organizational and business system within which they are embedded. The paper also illustrates how the contrasting logics of the US 'professional community' and the Japanese 'organizational community' model of learning are manifested in MNEs.