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This chapter presents Infosys’ approach to leader development that includes the practical benefits of psychometric and statistical methods commonly used by other disciplines, such as Rasch measurement and latent growth modeling. Infosys is beginning to use these with other individualized leader development practices such as coaching, intervention bundling, and evaluation. When combined, these elements have the potential to personalize developmental processes to each leader and improve microlevel leadership theory with the overarching purpose of enhancing global leadership at Infosys and promoting the science of individual leader development.

In the view of a more or less characteristic attitude toward “arm-chair stuff,” it is fair to say that this paper is frankly of that variety, it does not present the results, tabulated or otherwise, of any inductive investigation, under controlled conditions and no apology will be made to anybody on that score. Nor will much time be taken in arguing the worth-whileness of abstract thinking on the question of methods, or in settling the place of deduction in relation to induction. One way to study the problem of methods would be to try all possible methods on all possible problems and see which gave useful or satisfying results. In the same way, one way to study any science would be to try all possible experiments and see which ones succeed. (mushrooms and toadstools). I shall simply assume without much discussion that while the only way to settle any question in case of persistent uncertainty of disagreement is to try it, on the other hand two things are true; in the first place much labor can be saved by getting as clear an understanding of any problem as possible in advance of inductive study that blind trial and error methods are wasteful; and moreover, inductive investigation itself rarely proves anything unless it is intelligently planned and carried out with a view to proving or disproving some hypothesis which has seemed in the light of careful previous analysis to be worth testing. And of course I assume that these principles hold in relation to the study of methods as well as in other lines of inquiry. It is true that much a priori discussion is inconclusive, misdirected, and futile; it is often true that it is needlessly prolonged, carried beyond the point necessary to define the issues and serve as a guide in an investigation of facts. It is even true, though very exceptionally, that in some cases it is entirely helpless and the only thing to do is to begin experimentation blindly or wait for some accidental coincidence to suggest a solution of a problem. For example, the discovery of effective catalyzers in chemistry, or perhaps the stains to differentiate a suspected bacterium or the treatment for a new disease. But is also true that an enormous proportion of inductive scientific study is misdirected and futile because the problem was not adequately analyzed to begin with. In the field of social science, with which I am fairly familiar it is triturating the obvious to say that the greater part of the statistical studies either prove only what everybody already knew and which called for no proof or else seem to prove something that everyone knows is false. And when the result of statistics conflicts with the convictions of common sense, which is really well-informed judgment, it is a trite observation that it is usually the statistics which are wrong (Pearson). The man in the street has only too much justification for the common belief that anything can be proved by statistics, and for the well-known division of liars into the three grades: plain liars, damned liars, and statisticians.

Divisia component data is used in the training of an Aggregate Feedforward Neural Network (AFFNN), a general-purpose connectionist system designed to assist with data mining activities. The neural network is able to learn the money-price relationship, defined as the relationships between the rate of growth of the money supply and inflation. Learned relationships are expressed in terms of an automatically generated series of human-readable and machine-executable rules, shown to meaningfully and accurately describe inflation in terms of the original values of the Divisia component dataset.

This essay studies disconnections between the macrolevel societal problems of a state and more microlevel political alignments.

Using a dataset composed of macrolevel measures of state problems and microlevel responses to a 2008 election survey, this essay applies multilevel statistical models to explain the state-to-state variance between the states on anti-abortion and pro-gun sentiments. This analysis uncovers the macro- and microlevel factors that disconnect a state’s neglect-of-children indicators from its citizens’ sentiments about abortion, and the factors that disconnect a state’s crime indicators from its citizens’ sentiments about guns.

The initial associations between a state’s indicators of neglect of children and anti-abortion sentiments are explained by the state’s lower human development (HD) and social attributes, especially religious beliefs, which predict social conservatism. The initial associations between a state’s indicators of crime and incarcerations are also explained by a state’s lower HD and the social attributes, especially religious beliefs, which predict social conservatism. Considering both abortion and guns as key indicators of social conservatism, the voters’ political choices exhibit a moralistic axiological rationality rather than a more pragmatic instrumental rationality.

The moral absolutism associated with sentiments about abortion and guns suggests that social conservatism and authoritarianism are intertwined but separate conceptions, which have similar consequences and determinants. Both may be influenced by the same changes in social and educational policies, especially the quality of education.

This chapter explores how quality is assessed in craft beer through describing tastes and aromas in relationship to categories of beer style. Drawing on documentary sources, it explores the development and formalisation of definitions of beer styles, and the development of the contemporary language used to describe and assess taste. It then ethnographically explores how these are combined in the practice of craft beer judging at a competition through a novel assemblage of different methods. The empirical work contributes novel methods for exploring tasting practices, detailed ethnographic description of beer judging and an exploration of how the organisation of style guides and taste descriptions have contributed to defining and assessing quality in craft beer.

Achieving reliable instrument reprocessing requires finding the right balance among cost, productivity, and safety. However, there have been few attempts to comprehensively examine sterile processing department (SPD) work systems. We considered an SPD as an example of a socio-technical system – where people, tools, technologies, the work environment, and the organization mutually interact – and applied work systems analysis (WSA) to provide a framework for future intervention and improvement.

The study was conducted at two SPD facilities at a 700-bed academic medical center servicing 56 onsite clinics, 31 operating rooms (ORs), and nine ambulatory centers. Process maps, task analyses, abstraction hierarchies, and variance matrices were developed through direct observations of reprocessing work and staff interviews and iteratively refined based on feedback from an expert group composed of eight staff from SPD, infection control, performance improvement, quality and safety, and perioperative services. Performance sampling conducted focused on specific challenges observed, interruptions during case cart preparation, and analysis of tray defect data from administrative databases.

Across five main sterilization tasks (prepare load, perform double-checks, run sterilizers, place trays in cooling, and test the biological indicator), variance analysis identified 16 failures created by 21 performance shaping factors (PSFs), leading to nine different outcome variations. Case cart preparation involved three main tasks: storing trays, picking cases, and prioritizing trays. Variance analysis for case cart preparation identified 11 different failures, 16 different PSFs, and seven different outcomes. Approximately 1% of cases had a tray with a sterilization or case cart preparation defect and 13.5 interruptions per hour were noted during case cart preparation.

While highly dependent upon the individual skills of the sterile processing technicians, making the sterilization process less complex and more visible, managing interruptions during case cart preparation, improving communication with the OR, and improving workspace and technology design could enhance performance in instrument reprocessing.

In this chapter, the authors examine interdependence within and between routines by focusing on an aspect of routines that has often been taken for granted: boundaries. Logically, boundaries are needed to individuate and separate the entities that are being related or compared. Using observations of passenger service on a trans-Atlantic flight, the authors demonstrate that boundaries of routines are fluid and multiple. By understanding boundaries, the authors are able to better understand interdependence between actions within one routine and between multiple routines. The authors discuss how understanding boundaries complements existing theoretical perspectives on routine dynamics.

Several emergency public health issues have a tremendous impact on and rely upon close coordination with law enforcement officials. Most interactions involve law enforcement personnel providing security, crowd control, and/or traffic control during public health related incidents. However, as varied chemical and biological threats have emerged over the years, this interaction has increased to include joint investigations between the two disciplines. Certain biological threats, such as pandemics, pose direct threats to the law enforcement agency operations. Understanding the role of public health in emergencies, the overlapping missions, and the threats at all levels allows law enforcement professionals to better prepare themselves and their organizations for coordinating operations and maintaining continuity of law enforcement services.