1,721,153 research outputs found
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
Recommendations to reduce costs for the city of Bakersfield's defined benefit pension plans: focus on plans financed within the general fund
Full text linkGovernment agencies throughout California face complicated issues with public employee defined benefit pension plans. Market earnings on pension investments have plummeted with the decline of the U.S. economy. This market downturn increases pension costs for governmental agencies. As pension costs continue to command a significant allocation of governmental funding, services offered to citizens may decline to levels unsatisfactory to various stakeholders – citizens, elected officials, government agencies, private sector, and employees of these government agencies. However, salaries and benefits not comparable with the private sector and other governmental agencies may fail to attract qualified personnel to provide these very same services to citizens and the community. Public employee pension plans create political and emotional arguments by a myriad of stakeholders that may compromise and inhibit objective decision-making. Therefore, unbiased and objective analysis and interpretation is required even more with the politics and emotions inherent with this issue.
This study explores pension costs, as reported within the General Fund, for the City of Bakersfield. The City of Bakersfield’s pension costs increased from a low of 24.7 Million in Fiscal Year 2011/12 – a 562% increase. In addition, the actuarial value of the City of Bakersfield’s PERS plan assets, inclusive of all funding sources, over the accrued liability was 149 Million. Literary review of issues impacting public employee pension plans is also included in this study. Recommendations to curb public sector pension costs abound. This study focuses on recommendations offered by the Little Hoover Commission and Governor Brown’s “Twelve Point Pension Reform Plan.” This study then concludes with suggestions dealing specifically with rising costs for the City of Bakersfield’s defined benefit pension plans.
At this point, a disclosure is necessary to address potential bias on the author’s part. The author of this study is currently a 26-year employee with the City of Bakersfield and is a participant in the Miscellaneous defined benefit pension plan
Identifying effective performance measurements for family healthcare network
Full text linkFamily Healthcare Network is a non-profit organization that plans on implementing a "dashboard reporting system" to measure performance within their organization. However, they currently have not finalized what measures are more appropriate. They requested from the author assistance in identifying performance measures that will fit their needs, based on performance measures that other health centers have chosen. The purpose of this study is to introduce Family HealthCare Network, describe their problem, the purpose and importance of this study, then, to offer recommendations. Through the analysis and study of a variety of peer reviewed journals, articles, and interviews conducted with three health centers in California. This paper shall also offer recommendations to Family HealthCare Network on how to better define performance measures that best fit their mission, goals and objectives through the above sources. Dashboard reporting systems allow organizations to improve the services provided to their patients. They help an organization assess their performance, allows them to monitor clinical and financial impacts which in turn help analyze the performance of an organization. Dashboard reporting systems gives an organization the tools to fulfill their mission and allow organizations to compare alternatives and predict future outcomes. With regard to Family Health Care Network, it was concluded that there are two important categories that performance measure should be divided into, i.e. financial and clinical performance measures. The implementation of these two sets of performance measures should cover most aspects of Family HealthCare Network operational and financial stability. As a result, this study recommends Family Healthcare Network begin by separating potential performance measures into two categories of financial measures and a category of clinical measures. From those categories there are a variety of measures and indicators ranging from provider productivity to current ratio. Management's first step will be to develop a two section report separating performance measures into two categories of financial and clinical performance measures. There are six clinical measures and four financial measures that are recommended based on common and meaningful measures that were found through phone interviews with CFO's, and journal articles reviewed. It is concluded that: 1) The first report outlining performance measures should describe Clinical Measures, and should include performance measures of Provider Productivity, Wait Time, Customer Satisfaction, Call Center Efficiency, Human Resource Indicators, and Diabetic Patient Indicators; and, 2) The second report should describe Financial Measures. These performance measures include Current Ratio, Days Cash on Hand, Insurance Reimbursement, and Costs/Expenses. These are only a few performance measures that allow Family HealthCare Network to get started on the process of finalizing performance measures. Due to time constraints this study will did not research dashboard program software's available for Family HealthCare Network to purchase
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
Program evaluation of nutritional services by the Mercy & Memorial Hospital Learning Center
No full textNutrition plays an important role in all lives as it gives us the mental and physical strength to increase our well-being. In order to improve nutritional status, eating food will allow individuals body to continue to function in addition to giving them the strength to complete their tasks. Low-income and homeless individuals, that lack nutrition, are at a greater risk for deficiencies. With the emergence of outreach centers such as Mercy and Memorial Learning Center, such individuals are able to improve their quality of living as they receive food through different services. The outreach center serves close to 30,000 homeless and low-income individuals per year and this helps decrease the food-insecure individuals that are lacking proper nutrition.
The goal of this research was to determine whether Mercy and Memorial Learning Center are providing nutritional services to the clients that come to the center and to provide recommendations to increase the number of low-income and homeless individuals that partake in the services. Existing data and client surveys will be used and analyzed to ensure the program is reaching their goals of providing nutritional services to clients.
From the results, it was seen that some of the areas for improvement for the Mercy and Memorial Learning Center centered around marketing resources, increased risk of crime due to location and staffing issues. Based on the results, it is recommended that the learning center increases security measures to decrease the risk of crime or theft that could take place due to the location. Increased marketing resources would increase awareness increasing more low-income and homeless individuals
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe 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
Beyond any distance ever reached before to find the best laundry system in residential care facilities
Full text linkResidents expect to receive care by health care providers in residential care facilities. Health care providers are knowledgeable and skilled in what each person does. The existing problem at care facilities is a continuation of residents’ complaints about the same recurring misplaced laundry. The first thing, then is to identify that there is a growing need to fix this problem. Once there is realization that it is a problem is when it can be placed higher on the to-do list for the administrators to work with all his involved departments to agree on what will likely work and to decide on where or how to begin fixing the problem. Project RSQIC will be the first implemented plan to be practiced in care communities at first. If it turns out all components of this project shows efficiency and outstanding improvement, it can also be adopted by other care facilities too. Initially, laundry service issues were not seen as a complex issue. Throughout time, with so much more research has convinced the researcher otherwise. Therefore, whichever solutions are keeping the problem under controlled should be transparent to other care communities to adopt.
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research (2015), the six domains of health care are safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable. Similarly, a solution that will work also has to be timely and effective. The established modified laundry system will be monitored to identify any additional modifications administrators will need to come up with to improve the laundering process. As of now, it is to the best interests of the organization to become more motivated to make time to control the number of incidences of misplaced or lost clothing. Without enough efforts from all the employees involved in the laundering process, one of the worst faced scenarios will happen: Time of thinking for a way to retrieve back the missing clothing. If the problem had been taken care of in the first place, there was never going to be a demand for how to find the misplaced clothing
- …
