A collaborative approach to home care delivery for older clients: Perspectives of home care providers

A collaborative approach to home care (HC) delivery for older clients has taken centre stage (Nies, 2006). In Finland, public home help and home health care services have been combined to form the home care unit, whose goal is to provide a collaborative approach to care delivery through cooperation and sharing of responsibilities. In this model, the general practitioner (GP), home care nurses (HCN) and home help workers (HHW) care for shared clients. GPs and HCNs provide health care, such as monitoring of clients’ health status, and HHWs assist with personal care tasks such as dressing, washing and meal preparation. As the needs of older clients are multiple, collaboration is needed as one professional group cannot take sole responsibility (Nies, 2006). This paper reports on a study undertaken to examine home care unit care providers’ perspectives of the collaborative approach to HC delivery for older clients.

Business Process Model Merging : An Approach to Business Process Consolidation

This paper addresses the problem of constructing consolidated business process models out of collections of process models that share common fragments. The paper considers the construction of unions of multiple models (called merged models) as well as intersections (called digests). Merged models are intended for analysts who wish to create a model that subsumes a collection of process models - typically representing variants of the same underlying process - with the aim of replacing the variants with the merged model. Digests, on the other hand, are intended for analysts who wish to identify the most recurring fragments across a collection of process models, so that they can focus their efforts on optimizing these fragments. The paper presents an algorithm for computing merged models and an algorithm for extracting digests from a merged model. The merging and digest extraction algorithms have been implemented and tested against collections of process models taken from multiple application domains. The tests show that the merging algorithm produces compact models and scales up to process models containing hundreds of nodes. Furthermore, a case study conducted in a large insurance company has demonstrated the usefulness of the merging and digest extraction operators in a practical setting.

Microphone array beamforming approach to blind speech separation

In this paper, we present a microphone array beamforming approach to blind speech separation. Unlike previous beamforming approaches, our system does not require a-priori knowledge of the microphone placement and speaker location, making the system directly comparable other blind source separation methods which require no prior knowledge of recording conditions. Microphone location is automatically estimated using an assumed noise field model, and speaker locations are estimated using cross correlation based methods. The system is evaluated on the data provided for the PASCAL Speech Separation Challenge 2 (SSC2), achieving a word error rate of 58% on the evaluation set.

A prioritised fuzzy constraint satisfaction approach to model agent negotiation for railway scheduling

With the recent regulatory reforms in a number of countries, railways resources are no longer managed by a single party but are distributed among different stakeholders. To facilitate the operation of train services, a train service provider (SP) has to negotiate with the infrastructure provider (IP) for a train schedule and the associated track access charge. This paper models the SP and IP as software agents and the negotiation as a prioritized fuzzy constraint satisfaction (PFCS) problem. Computer simulations have been conducted to demonstrate the effects on the train schedule when the SP has different optimization criteria. The results show that by assigning different priorities on the fuzzy constraints, agents can represent SPs with different operational objectives.

Using a design led disruptive innovation approach to develop new services : practising innovation in times of discontinuity

Organisations face increasing competition from new firms in emerging markets and their past superior products may no longer provide competitive advantage in markets based on different cost and value differentials. A shift in design practices from product solutions to health services which are accessible and affordable by all is required. This paper explores a design led approach to innovation to assist medical device companies develop new services and experiences and reshape their notions of the nature, development and deployment of health care services. This approach uses design tools and methodologies that are grounded in the authentic understandings of stakeholder experiences, to assist an organisation create a vision of likely future health care scenarios. Through this process, organisations can explore the complexities in the delivery of future health care services in new and emerging markets allowing them to tailor product and service solutions which focus on being accessible and affordable by all. The industry based case study for the design of health services in carried out in emerging economies. The contribution of this work in advancing research into design innovation and future research directions are also presented.

Minimising transport disadvantage to support knowledge city formation : applying the capability approach to select indicators

Purpose–The aims of this paper are to demonstrate the application of Sen’s theory of well-being, the capability approach; to conceptualise the state of transportation disadvantage; and to underpin a theoretical sounds indicator selection process. Design/methodology/approach–This paper reviews and examines various measurement approaches of transportation disadvantage in order to select indicators and develop an innovative framework of urban transportation disadvantage. Originality/value–The paper provides further understanding of the state of transportation disadvantage from the capability approach perspective. In addition, building from this understanding, a validated and systematic framework is developed to select relevant indicators. Practical implications –The multi-indicator approach has a high tendency to double count for transportation disadvantage, increase the number of TDA population and only accounts each indicator for its individual effects. Instead, indicators that are identified based on a transportation disadvantage scenario will yield more accurate results. Keywords – transport disadvantage, the capability approach, accessibility, measuring urban transportation disadvantage, indicators selection Paper type – Academic Research Paper

Tracking employees’ twists and turns : a mixed methods approach to assessing change in the psychological contract

The psychological contract has emerged over the past 60 years as a key analytical device for both academics and practitioners to conceptualise and explain the employment relationship. However, despite the recognised import of this field, some authors suggest it has fallen into a ‘methodological rut’ and is neglecting to empirically assess basic theoretical tenets of the concept – such as the temporal and individualised, subjective nature of the construct. This paper describes the research design of a longitudinal, mixed methods study to explore development and change in the psychological contract and outline how the use of individual growth modelling can be a powerful tool in analysing the type of quantitative data collected. Finally, by briefly outlining the benefits of this approach, the paper seeks to offer an alternative methodology to explore the dynamic and intra-individual processes within the psychological contract domain.

An evidence-based approach to professional development planning in large state educational systems

This paper presents a systems-level approach for adjudicating the prioritization, selection, and planning of inservcie professional development (PD) for teachers. We present a step-by-step model for documenting and assessing system-wide 'bids' for professional development programs

A geometric approach to trajectory design for an autonomous underwater vehicle : surveying the bulbous bow of a ship

In this paper, we present a control strategy design technique for an autonomous underwater vehicle based on solutions to the motion planning problem derived from differential geometric methods. The motion planning problem is motivated by the practical application of surveying the hull of a ship for implications of harbor and port security. In recent years, engineers and researchers have been collaborating on automating ship hull inspections by employing autonomous vehicles. Despite the progresses made, human intervention is still necessary at this stage. To increase the functionality of these autonomous systems, we focus on developing model-based control strategies for the survey missions around challenging regions, such as the bulbous bow region of a ship. Recent advances in differential geometry have given rise to the field of geometric control theory. This has proven to be an effective framework for control strategy design for mechanical systems, and has recently been extended to applications for underwater vehicles. Advantages of geometric control theory include the exploitation of symmetries and nonlinearities inherent to the system. Here, we examine the posed inspection problem from a path planning viewpoint, applying recently developed techniques from the field of differential geometric control theory to design the control strategies that steer the vehicle along the prescribed path. Three potential scenarios for surveying a ship?s bulbous bow region are motivated for path planning applications. For each scenario, we compute the control strategy and implement it onto a test-bed vehicle. Experimental results are analyzed and compared with theoretical predictions.

A geometrical approach to the motion planning problem for a submerged rigid body

The main focus of this paper is the motion planning problem for a deeply submerged rigid body. The equations of motion are formulated and presented by use of the framework of differential geometry and these equations incorporate external dissipative and restoring forces. We consider a kinematic reduction of the affine connection control system for the rigid body submerged in an ideal fluid, and present an extension of this reduction to the forced affine connection control system for the rigid body submerged in a viscous fluid. The motion planning strategy is based on kinematic motions; the integral curves of rank one kinematic reductions. This method is of particular interest to autonomous underwater vehicles which can not directly control all six degrees of freedom (such as torpedo shaped AUVs) or in case of actuator failure (i.e., under-actuated scenario). A practical example is included to illustrate our technique.

A controlled rapid approach to curriculum change : addressing the pressures of increased test-based accountability on schools

Increasingly, large amounts of public and private money are being invested in education and as a result, schools are becoming more accountable to stakeholders for this financial input. In terms of the curriculum, governments worldwide are frequently tying school funding to students‟ and schools‟ academic performances, which are monitored through high-stakes testing programs. To accommodate the resultant pressures from these testing initiatives, many principals are re-focussing their school‟s curriculum on the testing requirements. Such a re-focussing, which was examined critically in this thesis, constituted an externally facilitated rapid approach to curriculum change. In line with previously enacted change theories and recommendations from these, curriculum change in schools has tended to be a fairly slow, considered, collaborative process that is facilitated internally by a deputy-principal (curriculum). However, theoretically based research has shown that such a process has often proved to be difficult and very rarely successful. The present study reports and theorises the experiences of an externally facilitated process that emerged from a practitioner model of change. This case study of the development of the controlled rapid approach to curriculum change began by establishing the reasons three principals initiated curriculum change and why they then engaged an outsider to facilitate the process. It also examined this particular change process from the perspectives of the research participants. The investigation led to the revision of the practitioner model as used in the three schools and challenged the current thinking about the process of school curriculum change. The thesis aims to offer principals and the wider education community an alternative model for consideration when undertaking curriculum change. Finally, the thesis warns that, in the longer term, the application of study‟s revised model (the Controlled Rapid Approach to Curriculum Change [CRACC] Model) may have less then desirable educational consequences.