1,720,956 research outputs found

    Information and communication technology and labour productivity growth: a production‐frontier approach

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    This work provides evidence of the positive impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the labour productivity growth of 24 countries, members of the OECD, from 1995 to 2019. Using a non-parametric production-frontier approach, we decompose labour productivity growth into components attributable to technological change (shifts in the world production frontier), efficiency change (movements toward or away from the frontier), physical (non-ICT) capital change and ICT capital change (movements along the frontier). We find that, on average, the most significant improvement in worldwide labour productivity is attributable to technological change, non-ICT, and ICT capital change over 1995-2019. In addition, we confirm the role of ICT as a general-purpose technology that needs to implement complementary changes in business organisations to exploit its growth opportunities fully. Finally, we conclude that ICT capital contributes to convergence

    The impact of health policy and technology on hospital productivity growth: evidence from Italy

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    The rapid increase in healthcare costs has drawn the attention of managers and policymakers towards regu-lating health expenditures: many countries have implemented deep reforms to improve efficiency and produc-tivity in the provision of health services. In Italy, the central government has introduced austerity measures,called recovery plans, to force the administrative regions to reduce healthcare deficits. In this study, we firstevaluate the impact of these recovery plans on hospitals’ productivity by calculating the Malmquist pro-ductivity index using data envelopment analysis. Next, we regress the obtained productivity index and itscomponents on a set of explanatory variables to capture the impact of the austerity measures, the moder-ating role of the regional organisational models, the variation in hospitals’ size and management autonomyand the capital intensity. The data used to estimate productivity were for an extensive period – from 2006 to2018. The results could contribute to assessing the increase in the productivity of hospitals and the influenceof government policies on the same

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Simulation of Patient-Centred Scenarios for the Improvement of Transportation Service in Hospitals

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    Hospitals and healthcare facilities are increasingly challenged to ensure an efficient use of resources while achieving a high quality in their services that also maximizes the patients’ safety. This is especially important in the case of transportation of patients whose health conditions require the use of appropriate procedures and tools. This work employs a simulation approach to propose solutions for hospitals to improve the organization of the patient transportation service. Resulting solutions are based on the perspective of the service provider and especially driven by patients’ needs. By using the Arena software, we analysed the service model in an Italian hospital and the variations in the human, physical and intangible resources that could improve the service performance, with a focus on the operations adding value in terms of time and collaborative behaviours among patients and operator

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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