South Africa is a dynamic developing country in a challenging transition. The economic purchasing power per person increased more than 173 percent in the first 15 years after Apartheid (World Bank, 2010), while the Human Development Index (HDI) is more or less unchanged since then (UNDP, 2011). South Africa is thus not only one of a few countries in the world that has not experienced human deve...

In this paper, the potential use of an exponential hidden Markov model to model a hidden pavement deterioration process, i.e. one that is not directly measurable, is investigated. It is assumed that the evolution of the physical condition, which is the hidden process, and the evolution of the values of pavement distress indicators, can be adequately described using discrete condition states and...

Does Mental Productivity Decline with Age? Evidence from Chess Players We use data on international chess tournaments to study the relationship between age and mental productivity in a brain-intensive profession. We show that less talented players tend to leave the game in the earliest phases of their career. When the effects of age on productivity vary with unobserved ability, commonly used fi...

The 2014 Indian general election marked a single party – the Bharatiya Janata Party, winning a majority of seats in Lok Sabha, the first time since the 1984 election. The Congress, the other main national party, suffered its worst ever defeat. This election was termed by some as a 'critical election' signalling the advent of a new phase of a ‘BJP dominated’ party system in India. In this paper,...

The 2014 Indian general election marked a single party – the Bharatiya Janata Party, winning a majority of seats in Lok Sabha, the first time since the 1984 election. The Congress, the other main national party, suffered its worst ever defeat. This election was termed by some as a 'critical election' signalling the advent of a new phase of a ‘BJP dominated’ party system in India. In this paper,...

The Open University's repository of research publications and other research outputs What roles do body sway deviations and body sway velocity play in postural stability when ageing? Journal Article How to cite: Jančová Všetečková, Jitka and Drey, Nicholas (2013). What roles do body sway deviations and body sway velocity play in postural stability when ageing? Acta Medica, 56(3) pp. 117–123. Fo...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary disease among infants of <28 weeks' gestation (extremely low gestational age newborns) often has the following pattern: the infant starts out with little need for supplemental oxygen and ventilatory support in the first postnatal week but then has pulmonary deterioration in the second postnatal week, with an increased need for supplemental oxygen and respiratory support. We...

Railway maintenance planners require a predictive model that can assess the railway track geometry degradation. The present paper uses a hierarchical Bayesian model as a tool to model the main two quality indicators related to railway track geometry degradation: the standard deviation of longitudinal level defects and the standard deviation of horizontal alignment defects. Hierarchical Bayesian...

Handling Editor: Stephanie Castro In this study, we develop and examine a model of leaders' impression management during organizational decline by elaborating on the roles of publicity, image concerns, and incentive compensation. We propose that the publicity of decline is an important antecedent of leaders' impression management during decline. We also examine how leaders' image concerns media...

Bridges are critical assets for the safe, reliable and functional operation of transportation networks. Infrastructure asset managers responsible ensuring that these bridges adhere to rigorous safety standards using finite resources available agencies. To facilitate strategy development present decisions stakeholders, a life cycle analysis is commonly performed. Many bridge owners use stochasti...