Public and private hospital services reform:an investigation in Iranian hospitals

This research aimed to present a model of efficiency for selected public and private hospitals of East Azerbaijani province of Iran by making use of DEA approach in order to recognize and suggest the best practice standards. In other words, its aim was to suggest a suitable context to develop efficient hospital systems while maintaining the quality of care at minimum expenditures. It is recommended for inefficient hospitals to make use of the followings: transferring, selling, or renting idle/unused beds; transferring excess doctors and nurses to the efficient hospitals or other health centers; pensioning off, early retirement clinic officers, technicians/technologists, and other technical staff. The saving obtained from the above approaches could be used to improve remuneration for remaining staff and quality of health care services of hospitals, rural and urban health centers, support communities to start or sustain systematic risk and resource pooling and cost sharing mechanisms for protecting beneficiaries against unexpected health care costs, compensate the capital depreciation, increasing investments, and improve diseases prevention services and facilities in the provincial and national levels.

Knowledge management and enterprise risk management implementation in financial services

This paper starts from the viewpoint that enterprise risk management is a specific application of knowledge in order to control deviations from strategic objectives, shareholders’ values and stakeholders’ relationships. This study is looking for insights into how the application of knowledge management processes can improve the implementation of enterprise risk management. This article presents the preliminary results of a survey on this topic carried out in the financial services sector, extending a previous pilot study that was in retail banking only. Five hypotheses about the relationship of knowledge management variables to the perceived value of ERM implementation were considered. The survey results show that the two people-related variables, perceived quality of communication among groups and perceived quality of knowledge sharing were positively associated with the perceived value of ERM implementation. However, the results did not support a positive association for the three variables more related to technology, namely network capacity for connecting people (which was marginally significant), risk management information system functionality and perceived integration of the information systems. Perceived quality of communication among groups appeared to be clearly the most significant of these five factors in affecting the perceived value of ERM implementation.

Technology transfer through international manufacturing networks:valuing technology from an owner’s perspective

Technology is a key part of organisational knowledge and gives its owners their distinctive capabilities and competitive advantages. However, to best use these assets technology often needs to be transferred and shared with others through a form of technology collaboration. This raises the important question of how technology should be valued when it is being transferred. Technology valuation has become a critical issue in most transfer transactions. Transfer arrangements and terms of payment have a significant effect on the generation and sharing of joint benefits in commercial, technical and strategic aspects. In this paper the concept of “owner's value” is explored by highlighting its structure and components and assessing the importance of factors affecting value. The influence on technology valuation of the transfer arrangement, the associated terms of payment and the interaction between the shared benefits, cost and risks are discussed.

Linking risk management to strategic controls:a case study of Tesco plc

Definitions and perceptions of the role and styles of risk management, and performance management/strategic control systems have evolved over time, but it can be argued that risk management is primarily concerned with ensuring the achievement of strategic objectives. This paper shows the extent of overlap between a broad-based view of risk management, namely Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), and the balanced scorecard, which is a widely used strategic control system. A case study of one of the UK's largest retailers, Tesco plc, is used to show how ERM can be introduced as part of an existing strategic control system. The case demonstrates that, despite some differences in lines of communications, the strategic controls and risk controls can be used to achieve a common objective. Adoption of such an integrated approach, however, has implications for the profile of risk and the overall risk culture within an organisation.

Planning for project control through risk analysis:a case of petroleum pipeline laying

Projects that are exposed to uncertain environments can be effectively controlled with the application of risk analysis during the planning stage. The Analytic Hierarchy Process, a multiattribute decision-making technique, can be used to analyse and assess project risks which are objective or subjective in nature. Among other advantages, the process logically integrates the various elements in the planning process. The results from risk analysis and activity analysis are then used to develop a logical contingency allowance for the project through the application of probability theory. The contingency allowance is created in two parts: (a) a technical contingency, and (b) a management contingency. This provides a basis for decision making in a changing project environment. Effective control of the project is made possible by the limitation of the changes within the monetary contingency allowance for the work package concerned, and the utilization of the contingency through proper appropriation. The whole methodology is applied to a pipeline-laying project in India, and its effectiveness in project control is demonstrated.

What risk factors are associated with Alzheimer's disease?

A large number of risk factors have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This article discusses the validity of the major risk factors that have been identified including age, genetics, exposure to aluminium, head injury, malnutrition and diet, mitochondrial dysfunction, vascular disease, immune system dysfunction, and infection. Rare forms of early-onset familial AD (FAD) are strongly linked to the presence of specific gene mutations, viz. mutations in amyloid precursor protein (APP) and presenilin (PSEN1/2) genes. By contrast, late-onset sporadic AD (SAD) is a multifactorial disorder in which age-related changes, genetic risk factors, such as allelic variation in apolipoprotein E (Apo E) gene, vascular disease, head injury and risk factors associated with diet, the immune system, mitochondrial function, and infection may all be involved. Life-style changes that may reduce the effect of these risk factors and therefore, the risk of AD are discussed.

Adaptation to flood risk:the case of businesses in the UK

Despite Government investment in flood defence schemes, many properties remain at high risk of flooding. A substantial portion of these properties are business establishments. Flooding can create serious consequences for businesses, including damage to property and stocks, being out of business for a considerable period and ultimately business failure. Recent flood events such as those in 2007 and 2009 that affected many parts of the UK have helped to establish the true costs of flooding to businesses. This greater understanding of the risks to businesses has heightened the need for business owners to adapt their businesses to the threat of future flooding. Government policy has now shifted away from investment in engineered flood defences, towards encouraging the uptake of property level flood resistance and resilience measures by businesses. However, implementing such adaptation strategies remains a challenge due a range of reasons. A review of the current state of property level flood risk adaptation of UK businesses is presented, drawing from extant literature. Barriers that may hinder the uptake of property level adaptation by businesses are revealed and drivers that may enhance uptake and effectively overcome these barriers are also discussed. It is concluded that the professions from the construction sector have the potential to contribute towards the adaptation of business properties and thereby the flood resilience of businesses at risk of flooding.

The value of risk reporting:a critical analysis of value-at-risk disclosures in the banking sector

This paper critically reviews the evolution of financial reporting in the banking sector with specific reference to the reporting of market risk and the growing use of the measure known as Value at Risk (VaR). The paper investigates the process by which VaR became 'institutionalised'. The analysis highlights a number of inherent limitations of VaR as a risk measure and questions the usefulness of published VaR disclosures, concluding that risk 'disclosure' might be more apparent than real. It also looks at some of the implications for risk reporting practice and the accounting profession more generally.

On Proactive Verifiable Secret Sharing Schemes

The paper has been presented at the International Conference Pioneers of Bulgarian Mathematics, Dedicated to Nikola Obreshkoff and Lubomir Tschakaloff , Sofia, July, 2006. The material in this paper was presented in part at the 11th Workshop on Selected Areas in Cryptography (SAC) 2004

Emerging of human factor in risk analysis of home care service

Risk management in healthcare represents a group of various complex actions, implemented to improve the quality of healthcare services and guarantee the patients safety. Risks cannot be eliminated, but it can be controlled with different risk assessment methods derived from industrial applications and among these the Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) is a largely used methodology. The main purpose of this work is the analysis of failure modes of the Home Care (HC) service provided by local healthcare unit of Naples (ASL NA1) to focus attention on human and non human factors according to the organization framework selected by WHO. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

International trade law, plain packaging and tobacco industry political activity:the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Tobacco companies are increasingly turning to trade and investment agreements to challenge measures aimed at reducing tobacco use. This study examines their efforts to influence the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major trade and investment agreement which may eventually cover 40% of the world's population; focusing on how these efforts might enhance the industry's power to challenge the introduction of plain packaging. Specifically, the paper discusses the implications for public health regulation of Philip Morris International's interest in using the TPP to: shape the bureaucratic structures and decision-making processes of business regulation at the national level; introduce a higher standard of protection for trademarks than is currently provided under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights; and expand the coverage of Investor-State Dispute Settlement which empowers corporations to litigate directly against governments where they are deemed to be in breach of investment agreements. The large number of countries involved in the TPP underlines its risk to the development of tobacco regulation globally.

Importance and Benefits of OPEN SCIENCE for Ubiquitous Sharing, Dissemination and Impact

While openness is well applied to software development and exploitation (open sources), and successfully applied to new business models (open innovation), fundamental and applied research seems to lag behind. Even after decades of advocacy, in 2011 only 50% of the public-funded research was freely available and accessible (Archambault et al., 2013). The current research workflows, stemming from a pre-internet age, result in loss of opportunity not only for the researchers themselves (cf. extensive literature on topic at Open Access citation project, http://opcit.eprints.org/), but also slows down innovation and application of research results (Houghton & Swan, 2011). Recent studies continue to suggest that lack of awareness among researchers, rather than lack of e-infrastructure and methodology, is a key reason for this loss of opportunity (Graziotin 2014). The session will focus on why Open Science is ideally suited to achieving tenure-relevant researcher impact in a “Publish or Perish” reality. Open Science encapsulates tools and approaches for each step along the research cycle: from Open Notebook Science to Open Data, Open Access, all setting up researchers for capitalising on social media in order to promote and discuss, and establish unexpected collaborations. Incorporating these new approaches into a updated personal research workflow is of strategic beneficial for young researchers, and will prepare them for expected long term funder trends towards greater openness and demand for greater return on investment (ROI) for public funds.

Electronic information sharing in local government authorities:factors influencing the decision-making process

Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are mainly characterised as information-intensive organisations. To satisfy their information requirements, effective information sharing within and among LGAs is necessary. Nevertheless, the dilemma of Inter-Organisational Information Sharing (IOIS) has been regarded as an inevitable issue for the public sector. Despite a decade of active research and practice, the field lacks a comprehensive framework to examine the factors influencing Electronic Information Sharing (EIS) among LGAs. The research presented in this paper contributes towards resolving this problem by developing a conceptual framework of factors influencing EIS in Government-to-Government (G2G) collaboration. By presenting this model, we attempt to clarify that EIS in LGAs is affected by a combination of environmental, organisational, business process, and technological factors and that it should not be scrutinised merely from a technical perspective. To validate the conceptual rationale, multiple case study based research strategy was selected. From an analysis of the empirical data from two case organisations, this paper exemplifies the importance (i.e. prioritisation) of these factors in influencing EIS by utilising the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. The intent herein is to offer LGA decision-makers with a systematic decision-making process in realising the importance (i.e. from most important to least important) of EIS influential factors. This systematic process will also assist LGA decision-makers in better interpreting EIS and its underlying problems. The research reported herein should be of interest to both academics and practitioners who are involved in IOIS, in general, and collaborative e-Government, in particular. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.