1,721,008 research outputs found
Daily nurse requirements planning based on simulation of patient flows
No full textNurses account for approximately 50 % of total hospital budgets and their allocation to medical units and shifts can significantly affect the quality of care provided to patients. The adoption of flexible shift schedules and the assessment of actual nursing time can enable sensible resource planning, balancing the quality of care with efficiency in resource use. Starting from the concept that nurse requirements are triggered by patient needs, which are stochastic in nature both for clinical activities and their duration, this paper proposes an innovative Nurse Requirement Planning model grounded on the concept of the clinical pathway (the “standard” sequence of diagnostic, therapeutic and care activities a patient with certain pathology should undertake over time) with its inner routing probability and patient dependence on nurses, which can be correlated to the time needed to perform nursing tasks. In merging and modelling these two aspects, the method summarizes the best features of acuity-quality and timed-task/activity techniques, well known although not usually applied for reasons of demands on clinicians’ time. Instead, in this paper, for each shift of the day, hospital management is enabled to choose the optimal number of nurses to meet actual requirements according to a desired service level and personnel saturation by means of a tool that simulates the patient flow in a medical unit based on automatic data retrieval from hospital databases. The validation and verification of the proposal were undertaken in a stroke unit
How can multichannel business strategy can improve sustainability value? A case study in banking.
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to examine the multichannel practices adopted by companies and the multichannel strategies used to create sustainable value. The study adopts a qualitative approach and, in order to improve the understanding of the researched phenomenon, privilege the analysis of a case study referred to an Italian company that operates in the banking sector. The results were classified according to the main dimensions of corporate sustainability identified in the Triple Bottom Line. For each dimension, it was reported: 1) the multichannel value creation practices and 2) the multi-channel tools or multi-channel strategies adopted to achieve sustainable results. The paper contributes to the literature by deepening the understanding of sustainability dimensions that are pursued through a multichannel strategy in banking. Moreover, the work investigates the relationship between sustainable value creation practices and the integrated multichannel strategies. A single case study limits the generalization of the findings
How multichannel business strategy can improve sustainability value. A case study in the banking context.
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine which multichannel practices companies adopt and in which practices the multichannel strategy of the company is used to create sustainable value.
Design/methodology - The study adopts a discovered research approach
and privilege, to improve the understanding of the researched phenomenon, the analysis of a case study referred to an Italian company that operates in the banking sector.
Findings – The analysis results were classified according to the subdivision into the main dimensions of TBL corporate sustainability: planet, people and profit. For each of the different dimensions was reported: 1) what are the multichannel value creation practices and 2) what are the multi-channel tools or multi-channel strategies adopted to achieve sustainable results.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the literature by deepening the understanding of sustainability dimensions that are pursued through a multichannel strategy within a firm like Unicredit. Moreover, the work investigates the relationship between sustainable value creation practices and the integrated multichannel strategy.
Research limitations/implications – A single case study obviously limits the generalizing of the findings
Brand meanings Institutionalization in Festival Service Ecosystems: the transformation of Giffoni brand
No full textA new consensus method for social networks viability
No full textPurpose – Online social networks have become one of the main feeder of news and it has been demonstrated their ability to determine opinion formation of users (Xiong et al., 2017). The growing number and consequences of fake news are capturing attention and concerns of the biggest players of the market such as Facebook and Google (The New York Times, 2016) who risk to lose credibility (The Washington Post, 2016). Another source of concern is the publication of inappropriate news (due to topic or multimedia contents not compliant with users’ community).
This paper proposes an innovative method to cope with fake and inappropriate news on social networks based on an extension of the Grouber model belonging to the class of Collective Knowlegde Systems (CKS) which incorporates a Consensus Method (Herrera-Viedma et al., 2014) typically used in the Group Decision Making (Alonso et al., 2013) built according to the Viable System Approach (VSA) perspective (Barile and Polese, 2010) and taking into account engagement (Carrubbo et al., 2017).
Design/Methodology/approach – Social networks are assumed as a specific example of Collective Knowlegde Systems (CKS), and an example of them is the model of Grouber (Grouber, 2008) in which small groups of proactive users produce information artifacts that can be searched by other users which need information.
Using the VSA lenses (Barile et al. 2015), these groups will be identified for having a specific information variety that allows them solving the complexity of news credibility/appropriateness assessment in a timely way. Given the Collective Intelligence logic (Levy, 1994), these people would need heterogeneous knowledge (but not dissonant information varieties), multiplying instead of summing their intelligence (Kerckhove, 1996) in order to provide different micro-contributions to the understanding (Nielsen, 2012). This would dynamically change their information variety and the information variety of the system as a whole (the social network). Moreover, the model will represent an engagement platform in the social network (which is, according to Storbacka et al. (2016) the microfundation of value co-creation) of both the judging experts ( reworded with a competence score) and the other users (who will perceive the news reliability in a consonant relation with the community). By adopting an holistic and systems perspective, such system’s reaction (thanks to its autopoietic traits) to reset relations with actors of the system’s structure in order to re-configure the system towards a new equilibrium can be interpreted as the system tension to keep viability.
After an introduction on the issue (section 1) and a comprehensive literature review related to service system and VSA on one side and CKS, Grouber model and consensus methods on the other side (section 2), the model will be mathematically formalized and described in detail (section 3) and finally shown in a simple application. Social and managerial implications will close.
Findings – The method proposed in the paper answers to the following questions:
1) How can fake/inappropriate news be detected by groups of individuals belonging to an on-line social network?
2) How can these individuals be further engaged in the community?
The method could be efficiently adopted in private social networks within organizations but also extended to bigger and general purpose ones.
Research limitations/implications - This research moves on the new frontier of social networks autopoiesis and will provide novel interesting contributions to the reflections on decision making in systems and viability of Smart Service Systems (Polese et al., 2017). Further researches will be needed to find out the optimal (and minimum) number and composition (in terms of information variety and gained rewording score) of experts to assign to each news to be evaluated in the consensus phase. Moreover, semiautomatic semantic filters could be introduced in the model to both classify news within expert classification categories and reduce the total amount of news to be evaluated (and, consequently, the lead time needed to make decisions), finally making the methods operating in a “quasi-real time” social network environment.
Originality/value – The originality of the paper relies on:
• adoption of the VSA lenses to cope with the issue of fake/inappropriate news in on-line social networks;
• adaptation of the Grouber model to the issue and incorporation of a consensus method;
• introduction of a further engagement logic into the community
Assessing the benefits of residential demand response in a real time distribution energy market
No full textIn the field of electricity distribution networks and with the advent of smart grids and microgrids, the use of Distribution Locational Marginal Price (D-LMPs) in a Real Time (RT) distribution market managed by a Distribution System Operator (DSO) is discussed in presence of empowered residential end-users that are able to bid for energy by a demand aggregator while following Demand Response (DR) initiatives. Each customer is provided by a transactive controller, which reads the locational market signals and answers with a bid taking into account the user preferences about some appliances involved in DR activities and controlled by smart plugs-in. In particular, Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) appliances and shiftable loads are controlled so that their consumption profile can be modified according to the price of energy.In order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of energy and cost saving, an innovative probabilistic methodology for evaluating the impact of residential DR choices considering uncertainties related to load demand, user preferences, environmental conditions, house thermal behavior and wholesale market trends has been proposed. The uncertainties related to the stochastic variations of the variables involved are modeled by using the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method. The combination of MCS and RT distribution market simulation based on D-LMPs are used to assess the operation and impact of the DR method over one month. Simulations results on an 84-buses distribution network confirmed that the proposed method allows saving costs for residential end-users and making the distribution network much reliable against network congestions thanks to the use of D-LMPs
COST SAVINGS IN HOSPITAL MATERIALS MANAGEMENT: LOOK-BACK VERSUS LOOK-AHEAD INVENTORY POLICIES
No full textThe Hospital Materials Management process deals with the coordination of all activities related to materials ordering, holding, and administering. It is usually treated with a look-back approach, by which materials are 'pushed' into the hospital on the basis of demand forecasts, while high stock levels are distributed throughout the system to prevent stockouts. This study analyses the possibility of reducing stocks while assuring a high service level to patients, and proposes an integrated approach to the supply chain. Medical information is used to issue orders (look-ahead approach), in a 'pulled' flow of information from bed to hospital pharmacy warehouses. The two approaches are compared by means of a discrete event simulation in different scenarios: cost savings can range from 2% to 7%; the higher the demand variability, the greater the convenience; the savings are slightly influenced by variations in external stockouts and pharmacy ordering costs
Gioco e valore per il consumatore
No full textIl mercato del gioco pubblico analizzato attraverso l’Approccio Sistemico Vitale presenta alcune criticità che non gli permettono di
connaturarsi come sistema vitale e, pertanto, di generare valore. Risulta necessario il ruolo dello Stato, che deve indirizzare e controllare l’operato degli attori che a vario titolo operano in questo sistema reticolare, favorendone relazioni di risonanza
Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making: Human–Machine Interactions for Successful Value Co-creation
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