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The purpose of this paper is to present a procedure for approximating DC operating points of nonlinear circuits. The presented approach can also be applied in case of multiple DC operating points.

A generalized Carleman linearization is used, which transforms an algebraic nonlinear equation into an equivalent infinite-dimensional linear system. In general, no close-form solution can be given for the infinite-dimensional linear system. Hence, the infinite-dimensional linear system is approximated by a finite one over a predefined interval using a self-consistent technique. The presented procedure allows to approximate all possible DC operating points within a predefined interval. To isolate all DC operating points, the initial interval is gradually divided into subintervals.

It is shown that the presented approach is not restricted to the polynomial case and allows to approximate all DC operating points. The presented approach can be applied in case of multiple DC operating points and does not depend on the domain of attraction of the DC operating points.

A new procedure for the approximation of DC operating points of nonlinear circuits based on a generalized Carleman linearization is presented. This approach can be applied in case of multiple DC operating points and is independent of the domain of attraction. Further, this generalized approach is not restricted to the polynomial case and can be applied to a variety of circuits.

The major purpose is to provide a philosophic basis for the study and practice of educational administration. An explicit assumption is that logical, propositional thought is a desirable prelude to action. Reason, which is defined as an organic harmony of impulses, is related to administration via three levels of discourse: 1) philosophic values (WHY), 2) hypothetico‐deductive theory (HOW), and 3) observed behavior (WHAT). The first level is defined by the discursive thought of the moral philosopher Santayana. His definition of rational ethics provides a foundation for administrative‐organizational theory in general, and the concept of bureaucracy in particular. The second level includes Weber's pure‐type structural model that has rationality as its dominant characteristic. The third level, administrative practice, or praxeology, is portrayed as a derivative of rational thought. Current approaches, including systems analysis and program budgeting, are rooted in the union of the logic of Santayana's ethics and Weber's structural model for human groupings.

Although adaptation to climate change is a well-researched topic at the individual level and in highly vulnerable industries, its integration into business strategies is poorly researched. In this chapter, we conduct bibliometric analyses on a sample of 368 relevant papers published in business journals to derive descriptive statistics and map the conceptual and intellectual structure of the field. We find an increased interest in adaptation and confirm a strong representation of industry-specific research. We complement the bibliometric analyses with a content analysis focused on emergent themes in the adaptation scholarship. We discuss systemic influences, individual effects, regulations and stakeholders, and exposure as areas likely to attract further scrutiny in future scholarship. For each theme, we derive practical implications for practitioners and policymakers.

In considering the lager beer industry of Denmark it may not seem out of place to recall the main facts regarding the researches of E. C. Hansen. It is due to Hansen, a Dane, that the brewing industry throughout the world was placed on a scientific basis so far as the employment of pure yeast cultures is concerned. The brewing of lager beer had been for long successfully practised in certain European countries, notably in Germany. In a word what may be termed the mechanical technik was well understood, but a knowledge of the underlying biological principles so far as they related to the nature and action of the yeast employed had not advanced so far. The study of micro‐organisms in general had but just commenced. Their very existence in many cases was not even suspected. The employment of yeast in brewing practice was largely of the “hit and miss” kind, and continued to be so until fifty years ago. It is true, of course, that excellent beer was being made in this country and on the continent, both top and bottom fermentation kinds, as it had been for centuries past, but the power to control the nature of the beer by using a pure culture of a selected variety of yeast was not possible until Hansen had made his investigations and published the results in 1883.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a hybrid approach to the research developed during a multi-researcher, ethnographic study of NHS management in the UK.

This methodological paper elaborates a hybrid approach to the sociological analysis – the critical-action theory – and indicates how it can contribute to the critical health management studies.

After exploring the various theoretical, methodological and philosophical options available, the paper discusses the main research issues that influenced the development of this perspective and the process by which the critical-action perspective was applied to the studies of managerial work in four health service sectors – acute hospitals, ambulance services, community services and mental healthcare.

This methodological perspective enabled a critical analysis of health service organisation that considered macro, meso and micro effects, in particular and in this case, how new public management drained power from clinicians through managerialist discourses and practices.

Healthcare organisations are often responding to the decisions that lie outside of their control and may have to enact changes that make little sense locally. In order to make sense of these effects, micro-, meso- and macro-level analyses are necessary.

The critical-action perspective is presented as an adjunct to traditional approaches that have been taken to the study of health service organisation and delivery.

For Weberian Marxists, the social theories of Max Weber and Karl Marx are complementary contributions to the analysis of modern capitalist society. Combining Weber's theory of rationalization with Marx's critique of commodity fetishism to develop his own critique of reification, Georg Lukács contended that the combination of Marx's and Weber's social theories is essential to envisioning socially transformative modes of praxis in advanced capitalist society. By comparing Lukács's theory of reification with Habermas's theory of communicative action as two theories in the tradition of Weberian Marxism, I show how the prevailing mode of “doing theory” has shifted from Marx's critique of economic determinism to Weber's idea of the inner logic of social value spheres. Today, Weberian Marxism can make an important contribution to theoretical sociology by reconstituting itself as a framework for critically examining prevailing societal definitions of the rationalization imperatives specific to purposive-rational social value spheres (the economy, the administrative state, etc.). In a second step, Weberian Marxists would explore how these value spheres relate to each other and to value spheres that are open to the type of communicative rationalization characteristic of the lifeworld level of social organization.

Despite profound differences, both the German Historical School and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School have in common a theoretical and cultural heritage in Central European traditions of social thought and philosophy. Although both schools often are perceived as quintessentially German traditions of economic and social research, their methodological presuppositions and critical intent diverge strongly. Since the objective of the Frankfurt School was to carry the theoretical critique initiated by Marx into the twentieth century, and since its members did so on a highly abstract level of theoretical criticism, the suggestion may be surprising that in terms of their respective research agendas, there was a common denominator between the German Historical School and the Frankfurt School critical theory. To be sure, as will become apparent, the common ground was rather tenuous and indirect. We must ask, then: in what respects did their theoretical and analytical foundations and orientations overlap? How did the German Historical School, as a nineteenth-century tradition of economic thinking, influence the development of the Frankfurt School?

The purpose of this paper is to describe three threshold experience cases where individuals avoid and disobey hierarchy and rules in order to satisfy their own values and aspirations.

Observations of the author as a participant observer, employee, and academic researcher are reported and analyzed.

In each of the three cases, the formal hierarchy was reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition was uncertain and outcomes were thrown into doubt. These were liminal situations which involved uncertainty, ambiguity, doubts, and fear as a result of the suspending of organizational structure. The circumstances in which disobedience is most likely to occur are: lack of transparency; conflict between point of view of leaders and individual perception; demands that seem to be unreasonable; individual role in conflict with authoritative expectations.

Organizational hierarchy and mandates are designed to produce achievement of management goals. There are, however, circumstances where individual resistance is required in order to achieve desired results.

In recent years, the concept of “reification” has virtually disappeared from debates in social theory, including critical social theory. The concept was at the center of the revitalization of Marxist theory in the early twentieth century generally known as Western Marxism. Georg Lukács in particular introduced the concept to express how the process described in Marx's critique of alienation and commodification could be grasped more effectively by combining it with Max Weber's theory of rationalization (see Agger, 1979; Stedman Jones et al., 1977).¹ In Lukács's use, the concept of reification captured the process by which advanced capitalist production, as opposed to earlier stages of capitalist development, assimilated processes of social, cultural, and political production and reproduction to the dynamic imperatives and logic of capitalist accumulation. It is not just interpersonal relations and forms of organization constituting the capitalist production process that are being refashioned along the lines of one specific definition of economic necessity. In addition, and more consequentially, the capitalist mode of production also assimilates to its specific requirements the ways in which human beings think the world. As a result, the continuous expansion and perfection of capitalist production and its control over the work environment impoverishes concrete social, political, and cultural forms of coexistence and cooperation, and it brings about an impoverishment of our ability to conceive of reality from a variety of social, political, and philosophical viewpoints.