Process management in healthcare.Sant Camil Hospital case study

Nowadays due to the crisis, some government measures are aimed at reducing healthcare spending, affecting in some level or another the quality offered. Process management is said to be a useful tool for reducing healthcare costs by improving management without any additional economic investment. That is doing more with the same resources and without reducing the quality offered. In this study an empirical case of a Catalan hospital is presented. Overall, the usefulness of process management in the healthcare sector is shown and some tips are provided for those managers that want to implement this management system in their hospitals. This work is also interesting for those managers responsible for the National Healthcare System due to a big question is stated: what would happen if process management was implemented in the whole healthcare system?

The Co-management Survey report: an executive summary

Co-management is typically known to be a resource management system that shares managerial responsibility between the state and other stakeholders of a resource. In the case of Lake Victoria, one would expect the state to be represented by the fisheries departments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, while stakeholder groups may comprise fishing communities, fish processing factories and municipalities. Taking that into account, the survey's objectives were defined as: (a) To identify the difficulties and impracticalities inherent in implementing state-based regulations via a "top-down" management strategy. (b) To assess the prevalence of community-based institutions that either seek to regulate the fishery or have the potential to be used to regulate it. (c) To identify ways in which community-based regulatory and monitory systems may be established, and how these will fare over time. (d) To identify roles for national Fisheries Departments, industrial fish processors and other stakeholders. (e) To develop well-founded policy suggestions for the establishment of a co-management framework to manage the fisheries of Lake Victoria.

An alternative management strategy for Lake Victoria (Kenya)

In Kenya, fisheries resource management has been based on the top-down centralized approach since the colonial days. Stakeholders have never been consulted concerning management decisions. The 4-beaches Study was undertaken to investigate the potential for an alternative management system for Lake Victoria.

A Data Dropout Compensation Algorithm Based on the Iterative Learning Control Methodology for Discrete-Time Systems

This paper deals with the convergence of a remote iterative learning control system subject to data dropouts. The system is composed by a set of discrete-time multiple input-multiple output linear models, each one with its corresponding actuator device and its sensor. Each actuator applies the input signals vector to its corresponding model at the sampling instants and the sensor measures the output signals vector. The iterative learning law is processed in a controller located far away of the models so the control signals vector has to be transmitted from the controller to the actuators through transmission channels. Such a law uses the measurements of each model to generate the input vector to be applied to its subsequent model so the measurements of the models have to be transmitted from the sensors to the controller. All transmissions are subject to failures which are described as a binary sequence taking value 1 or 0. A compensation dropout technique is used to replace the lost data in the transmission processes. The convergence to zero of the errors between the output signals vector and a reference one is achieved as the number of models tends to infinity.

ETCS protokoloaren hedatzea simulazio hibridodun ingurune batean System-in-the-loop erreminta erabiliz.

[EU]Gaur egun, Europa mailan European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) seinaleztapen-sistema bateratua hedatzen ari dira trenbide sare desberdinen arteko elkar eragintasuna bultzatzeko. Proiektu honen helburua da ERTMS sistemaren barneko ETCS protokoloa hedatzea simulazio hibridodun ingurune batean, ERTMS sistemaren hedatzea azkartuko duten erakusleak sortuz. Horretarako, OPNET simulagailuaren System-in-the-loop erreminta erabili da. Erreminta hau baliatuz ETCS protokoloaren pakete errealak ingurune simulatuan integratzeko funtzioen liburutegi bat idatzi da. Amaitzeko, liburutegi hori baliatuz ETCS protokoloak sareko arazoen aurrean duen errendimenduaren analisi bat burutu da eta liburutegi berri horrek pakete errealak simulatuetara itzultzean (eta kontrakoa) duen errendimendua zein den aztertu da.

The software for oceanographic data management: VODC for PC 2.0

To manage and process a large amount of oceanographic data, users must have powerful tools that simplify these tasks. The VODC for PC is software designed to assist in managing oceanographic data. It based on 32 bits Windows operation system and used Microsoft Access database management system. With VODC for PC users can update data simply, convert to some international data formats, combine some VODC databases to one, calculate average, min, max fields for some types of data, check for valid data…

Performance plumbing: Installing performance management systems to deliver lasting value

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of performance plumbing, arguing that too often performance management systems in organisations are not correctly installed. Without the appropriate plumbing, performance management systems do not drive organisational change and improvement. Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on the consultancy experiences of two of the authors, as well as the research of the third. Specific case examples are provided throughout the paper to illustrate the points being made. Findings - The paper argues that the key elements of a plumbed-in performance management system are: performance architecture; performance insights; performance focus; and performance action. Taken together, these four elements provide the necessary plumbing to enable performance management systems to deliver real value. Research limitations/implications - The paper draws on the experience of the authors, rather than a formally designed piece of research. The ideas presented in the paper would therefore benefit from further investigation and testing. Originality/value - The paper will be valuable to scholars and practitioners interested in ensuring that performance management systems deliver lasting value. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Co-management approach on fisher group: a case study on Ramsar site, Tanguar haor in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, wetlands are managed through leasing system traditionally from time immemorial. Recently the Government accepted co-management approach for wetland fisheries management and this approach is being practiced in few wetlands for maximize revenue income. A study was carried out to evaluate trend and impact of co-management in Tanguar haor (a Ramsar site wetland) on fisheries resources and livelihood of resident people in the immediate vicinity of the wetland. In Tanguar haor, conflict between leaseholders and the local community was a common phenomenon in the past. Since 2003 the district administration of Sunamganj has been managing the vast wetland resources, however, local people participation was ignored in haor management system. Average monthly fish catch of fishermen increased by 17% after introduction of co-management system and 7 fish species reappeared after introduction of co-management. Average monthly volume of fish catch has increased from 70 kg to 87 kg. A well-defined management structure has been developed for integration of all people of Tanguar haor which would enable them to raise voice jointly and influence policy in their favour.

Investigating the link between well-being and energy use; an explorative case study between passive and active domestic energy management systems

The aim of this study was to explore how the remote control of appliances/lights (active energy management system) affected household well-being, compared to in-home displays (passive energy management system). A six-week exploratory study was conducted with 14 participants divided into the following three groups: active; passive; and no equipment. The effect on well-being was measured through thematic analysis of two semi-structured interviews for each participant, administered at the start and end of the study. The well-being themes were based on existing measures of Satisfaction and Affect. The energy demand for each participant was also measured for two weeks without intervention, and then compared after four weeks with either the passive or active energy management systems. These measurements were used to complement the well-being analysis. Overall, the measure of Affect increased in the passive group but Satisfaction decreased; however, all three measures on average decreased in the active group. The measured energy demand also highlighted a disconnect between well-being and domestic energy consumption. The results point to a need for further investigation in this field; otherwise, there is a risk that nationally implemented energy management solutions may negatively affect our happiness and well-being. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

An architecture design with data model for product recovery management systems

Due to concerns about environmental protection and resource utilization, product lifecycle management for end-of-life (EOL) has received increasing attention in many industrial sectors including manufacturing, maintenance/repair, and recycling/refurbishing of the product. To support these functions, crucial issues are studied to realize a product recovery management system (PRMS), including: (1) an architecture design for EOL services, such as remanufacturing and recycling; (2) a product data model required for EOL activity based on international standards; and (3) an infrastructure for information acquisition and mapping to product lifecycle information. The presented works are illustrated via a realistic scenario. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

hyo-xtm: a set of hyper-graph operations on xml topic map toward knowledge management

Knowledge management is a critical issue for the next-generation web application, because the next-generation web is becoming a semantic web, a knowledge-intensive network. XML Topic Map (XTM), a new standard, is appearing in this field as one of the structures for the semantic web. It organizes information in a way that can be optimized for navigation. In this paper, a new set of hyper-graph operations on XTM (HyO-XTM) is proposed to manage the distributed knowledge resources.HyO-XTM is based on the XTM hyper-graph model. It is well applied upon XTM to simplify the workload of knowledge management.The application of the XTM hyper-graph operations is demonstrated by the knowledge management system of a consulting firm. HyO-XTM shows the potential to lead the knowledge management to the next-generation web.

On the meaning of integration in coastal zone management

This paper discusses the definition and use of the term ‘integrated management’ in the context of coastal and ocean resources. It identifies several components which appear to be needed to establish an integrated management system for a large area subject to multiple use and jurisdiction. It suggests that the basis of integrated management should be a clear articulation of common purpose which addresses long term needs and vision. Once developed, this common purpose should be securely established to provide the setting against which sectoral and agencies managers and the community conduct and co-ordinate their activities.

Resource Management for Responsive Web Computing

The exploding demand for services like the World Wide Web reflects the potential that is presented by globally distributed information systems. The number of WWW servers world-wide has doubled every 3 to 5 months since 1993, outstripping even the growth of the Internet. At each of these self-managed sites, the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) already constitute a rudimentary basis for contributing local resources to remote collaborations. However, the Web has serious deficiencies that make it unsuited for use as a true medium for metacomputing --- the process of bringing hardware, software, and expertise from many geographically dispersed sources to bear on large scale problems. These deficiencies are, paradoxically, the direct result of the very simple design principles that enabled its exponential growth. There are many symptoms of the problems exhibited by the Web: disk and network resources are consumed extravagantly; information search and discovery are difficult; protocols are aimed at data movement rather than task migration, and ignore the potential for distributing computation. However, all of these can be seen as aspects of a single problem: as a distributed system for metacomputing, the Web offers unpredictable performance and unreliable results. The goal of our project is to use the Web as a medium (within either the global Internet or an enterprise intranet) for metacomputing in a reliable way with performance guarantees. We attack this problem one four levels: (1) Resource Management Services: Globally distributed computing allows novel approaches to the old problems of performance guarantees and reliability. Our first set of ideas involve setting up a family of real-time resource management models organized by the Web Computing Framework with a standard Resource Management Interface (RMI), a Resource Registry, a Task Registry, and resource management protocols to allow resource needs and availability information be collected and disseminated so that a family of algorithms with varying computational precision and accuracy of representations can be chosen to meet realtime and reliability constraints. (2) Middleware Services: Complementary to techniques for allocating and scheduling available resources to serve application needs under realtime and reliability constraints, the second set of ideas aim at reduce communication latency, traffic congestion, server work load, etc. We develop customizable middleware services to exploit application characteristics in traffic analysis to drive new server/browser design strategies (e.g., exploit self-similarity of Web traffic), derive document access patterns via multiserver cooperation, and use them in speculative prefetching, document caching, and aggressive replication to reduce server load and bandwidth requirements. (3) Communication Infrastructure: Finally, to achieve any guarantee of quality of service or performance, one must get at the network layer that can provide the basic guarantees of bandwidth, latency, and reliability. Therefore, the third area is a set of new techniques in network service and protocol designs. (4) Object-Oriented Web Computing Framework A useful resource management system must deal with job priority, fault-tolerance, quality of service, complex resources such as ATM channels, probabilistic models, etc., and models must be tailored to represent the best tradeoff for a particular setting. This requires a family of models, organized within an object-oriented framework, because no one-size-fits-all approach is appropriate. This presents a software engineering challenge requiring integration of solutions at all levels: algorithms, models, protocols, and profiling and monitoring tools. The framework captures the abstract class interfaces of the collection of cooperating components, but allows the concretization of each component to be driven by the requirements of a specific approach and environment.

Energy harvesting system design and optimization for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are becoming widely adopted for many applications including complicated tasks like building energy management. However, one major concern for WSN technologies is the short lifetime and high maintenance cost due to the limited battery energy. One of the solutions is to scavenge ambient energy, which is then rectified to power the WSN. The objective of this thesis was to investigate the feasibility of an ultra-low energy consumption power management system suitable for harvesting sub-mW photovoltaic and thermoelectric energy to power WSNs. To achieve this goal, energy harvesting system architectures have been analyzed. Detailed analysis of energy storage units (ESU) have led to an innovative ESU solution for the target applications. Battery-less, long-lifetime ESU and its associated power management circuitry, including fast-charge circuit, self-start circuit, output voltage regulation circuit and hybrid ESU, using a combination of super-capacitor and thin film battery, were developed to achieve continuous operation of energy harvester. Low start-up voltage DC/DC converters have been developed for 1mW level thermoelectric energy harvesting. The novel method of altering thermoelectric generator (TEG) configuration in order to match impedance has been verified in this work. Novel maximum power point tracking (MPPT) circuits, exploring the fractional open circuit voltage method, were particularly developed to suit the sub-1mW photovoltaic energy harvesting applications. The MPPT energy model has been developed and verified against both SPICE simulation and implemented prototypes. Both indoor light and thermoelectric energy harvesting methods proposed in this thesis have been implemented into prototype devices. The improved indoor light energy harvester prototype demonstrates 81% MPPT conversion efficiency with 0.5mW input power. This important improvement makes light energy harvesting from small energy sources (i.e. credit card size solar panel in 500lux indoor lighting conditions) a feasible approach. The 50mm × 54mm thermoelectric energy harvester prototype generates 0.95mW when placed on a 60oC heat source with 28% conversion efficiency. Both prototypes can be used to continuously power WSN for building energy management applications in typical office building environment. In addition to the hardware development, a comprehensive system energy model has been developed. This system energy model not only can be used to predict the available and consumed energy based on real-world ambient conditions, but also can be employed to optimize the system design and configuration. This energy model has been verified by indoor photovoltaic energy harvesting system prototypes in long-term deployed experiments.