1,721,194 research outputs found
Improving police control rooms using simulation
Full text linkPolice command and control centres are the main point of contact for the public who require help. Like other areas of UK public services, police forces are set targets for their performance. Some of these targets relate to the speed at which they respond to calls for assistance from the public. In this paper we share our experience in improving the performance of command and control centres of a UK Police Force; a project which started as a classical simulation exercise and ended up with a significant reorganization in a UK Police Force
A call for conceptual clarity: a soft systems view of performance measurement in public service delivery
Full text linkPerformance measurement systems and the publication of performance data are fundamental to the New Public Management, with its emphasis on decentralised service provision through a variety of agencies. There seem to be four reasons for this performance measurement: to see what works, to identify competences, to support public accountability and to allow control of decentralised service provision. Each of these is examined, using the root definitions that form part of soft systems methodology, which highlights the importance of different worldviews that provide justifications for different approaches to this measurement. If performance measurement systems are to be beneficial, their design should be based on a conceptualisations that recognises these different worldviews and purposes
Understanding the effects of waiting time targets using modelling and simulation
Full text linkObjectives A generalisable simulation model is described; intended for use by managers, clinicians, planners and policy makers to understand the effects of UK waiting time targets for hospital care that have been a feature of the English NHS for some years. It is important that their development, use and emulation elsewhere is based on evidence and the model shows the effects of such targets and the actions taken to achieve them. Methods Using UK Health Episode Statistics, Patient Administration Systems and local data, the simulation model can be configured to fit the activities of many UK general hospitals. The simulations capture changes made in the hospital and their effect on waiting time performance and side effects such as cancellations. Results The paper includes a demonstration of the use of the simulation model to investigate the activity of a UK district general hospital over a two and half year period. This shows that its success in reducing patient waiting times was based on a multi-facetted approach that is much superior to individual initiatives. Conclusions Building a whole hospital model of waiting time performance is feasible and offers benefits to users in understanding the effects of changes in hospitals that are large, complex and highly congested systems. This is essential if target-based policies are to be based on evidence so that side effects can be minimised
Discrete event simulation for performance modelling in healthcare: a review of the literature
Full text linkDiscrete Event Simulation (DES) has been widely used in modelling health-care systems for many years and a simple citation analysis shows that the number of papers published has increased markedly since 2004. Over the last 30 years several significant reviews of DES papers have been published and we build on these to focus on the most recent era, with an interest in performance modelling within hospitals. As there are few papers that propose or illustrate general approaches, we classify papers according to the areas of application evident in the literature, discussing the apparent lack of genericity. There is considerable diversity in the objectives of reported studies and in the consequent level of detail: We discuss why specificity dominates and why more generic approaches are rare
Understanding target-driven action in A&E performance using simulation
Full text linkMany computer simulation models of emergency departments have been developed to aid clinicians and managers to maintain and improve the performance of their departments. A model is presented that can also be used to understand changes in performance that may occur as a result of the 4-hour target regime in the English NHS. The model simulates the performance resulting from normal activity, and the differences between this and actual performance are revealing. The results from two departments are presented to demonstrate this mode of model use. These reveal the extent of special action taken in some emergency departments as patients approach the target time, and also show the true underlying performance of the department
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe 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
A taxing problem: the complementary use of hard and soft OR in public policy
Full text linkA review of the UK personal taxation system used a combination of hard and soft OR approaches in a complementary way. The hard OR was based on data mining to increase understanding of individual taxpayers and their changing needs within the personal tax system. The soft OR was based on soft systems methodology with two aims in mind. First, to guide the review and, secondly, as an auditable approach for collecting the views of key internal and external stakeholders. The soft and hard OR were used alongside one another, rather than one providing a contextual scheme for the other. The experience reveals that soft OR is much more than common sense and, that, used in parallel, soft and hard approaches have a powerful synerg
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