Search results

The goal of this contribution is to shed light on the benefits for research in health care coming from the use of administrative data, especially in terms of measuring hospitals’ outcomes. The main approaches to health outcome evaluation are reviewed and the possible improvements deriving from the use of administrative data are highlighted. Administrative data may be an essential element in the process of gathering to the public true rankings of health care organizations, reducing the degree of asymmetric information that typically arises in health care. Patients will be more aware of the best institutions, which will induce most of them to demand to be admitted in them, taking into account the costs associated with distance and with the severity of the illness. This in turn may ask for a reorganization of the sector, closing some organizations and expanding others, having as final goal to improve the health status of the population, without income barriers. This is one of the first attempts to provide an overview of the advantages that administrative data may gather in health care.

Representations of female perpetrators of political violence contribute to society's thinking about women, gender, violence and agency. Analysis of this discourse is vital to understand its influence on society's knowledge of women and violence. The study investigates how gendered narratives are used to frame female ex-combatants in Nationalist and Unionist newspapers in the post-conflict society of Northern Ireland. The media is a central agent in the construction of knowledge; and this is significant for women who have perpetrated crimes or (political) violence. The existing research found that violent women are narrated and interpreted through gendered discursive frameworks to dismiss or make sense of their violence. However, in the Northern Irish case, although the women are constructed within gendered frames, this does not deny their agency in past political violence.

In this study, the authors examine the issue of corruption in the government institutions of developing countries. Additionally, this study aims to answer the following research question: How do developing countries implement and enforce these anti-corruption policies? Specifically, the authors look at the laws adopted in different developing countries to deal with issues related to corruption.

The authors use the qualitative approach to examine the causes of recent corruption among government officials in developing countries such as Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. A comparative approach was used to compare and contrast the anti-corruption practices of developing and developed countries.

The findings indicate that corruption is rampant in much of the developing world. On a positive note, the authors have found evidence of actions taken by governments in these developing economies to rapidly deal with issues of corruption. All the countries analyzed in this paper have developed anti-corruption policies and related acts to detect and punish the perpetrators of corruption.

This paper provides a greater insight as to how the anti-corruption policies are formulated and enforced in the developing world. Specifically, the authors provide examples of different emerging countries and their approaches to developing and enforcing anti-corruption policies. This guidance can help others around the world to deal with anti-corruption policies in their countries. Although the authors have learned a lot about the detrimental effects of corruption and laws enacted to combat it, the next step is to examine the processes used by the developing countries to develop these anti-corruption laws and policies.

This paper reviews an array of psycholinguistic techniques that auditors can deploy to explore written and oral language for signs of deception. The review is drawn upon to propose some elements of a forward research agenda.

Relevant literature across several disciplines is identified through keyword searches of major bibliographic databases.

The techniques highlighted have considerable potential for use by auditors to identify audit contexts which merit closer audit investigation. However, the techniques need further contextual empirical investigation in audit contexts. Seven specific propositions are presented for empirical testing.

This paper assembles literature on deceptive communication from a wide range of disciplines and relates it to the audit context. Auditors’ attention is directed to potential linguistic signals of fraud risk, and opportunities for future research are suggested. The paper is consciousness-raising, has pedagogic purpose and suggests critical elements for a future research agenda.

Upon the changes that have taken place in the tourist sector since the 7 990s, the SMTEs and the destinations where they operate are called to reflect on the opportunity to redefine the strategic and organizational assets that have distinguished them until now in order to respond to new needs and desires coming from a more segmented demand side. This paper presents the results of a research project conducted in the Dolomites, the most important alpine area in terms of numbers of tourists, representative of a community tourist destination and where the tourists do not defer to intermediaries to organize the vacation (do‐it‐yourself tourists). The Dolomites are now in the “mature” phase of the development life cycle and as such need a new approach to the market in order to maintain loyalty among current visitors and to gain loyalty in new tourist segments. The research was done in the summer 2001 and winter 2001–2002 by administering 5,000 online questionnaires to a representative sampling of “do‐it‐yourself” tourists. The objective was to study the decision‐making and behavioural models of do‐it‐yourself tourists and to build profiles of tourists who choose this destination. From these profiles it is possible to identify strategies that the SMTEs and the alpine destination as a whole could undertake to achieve the goals described above. The research highlights the importance for SMTEs to overcome the entrepreneurial spontaneity and to adopt an informed and planned business strategy. In this scenario the Regional Tourist Boards emerge as important actors that can play a key role in meta‐management.

Drawing from the knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper aims to explore the knowledge management practices that the acquirer uses to exploit its knowledge creating conditions for the exploitation of the target’s knowledge and to explore its knowledge by realizing routines for the integration of new knowledge within the target.

This paper presents an in-depth case study analysis based on the acquisition of a Dutch food service organization by an Italian company operating in the same sector.

The case study analysis reveals four mechanisms for knowledge integration, two aimed at exploiting the acquirer’s knowledge, and two aimed at exploring the acquirer’s knowledge.

This paper unveils that it is the interlinkage among organizational, human and technological factors, at multiple layers of the target, which allows the knowledge integration within the post-acquisition process.

The purpose of this paper devoted to the application of modal analysis to analyze the flow structure of trailing edge cutback film cooling and the effects of vortex structure on the film cooling effectiveness of the cutback surface.

Large eddy simulation (LES) is used to simulate the trailing edge cutback film cooling. The results of LES are analyzed by proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) method. The POD method is used to determine the dominated vortex structure and the energy level of these structures. The DMD method is used to analyze the relationship between vortex structures and wall temperature.

The POD method shows that the flow field consists of three main vortices – streamwise vortex, lip vortex and coolant vortex. The DMD results show that the lip vortex mainly acts on the middle section of the cutback surface, while the streamwise vortex mainly acts on the back section of the cutback surface.

The modal analysis is only based on numerical simulation but the modal analysis of experimental results will be further studied in the future.

This paper presents the powerful ability of the modal analysis method to study complex flows in trailing edge cutback film cooling. Establishing the relationship between vortex and wall temperature by modal analysis method can provide a new idea for studying convective heat transfer problems.

The role of streamwise vortex in the flow of the trailing edge cutback cooling and its effect on the cooling effectiveness of the cutback surface is found.

When using photodiode arrays for optical recognition, the information of a picture is represented in a fixed orthogonal grid. This grid corresponds to the matrix arrangement of the individual photodiodes. In a square matrix of n × n points, the information in the picture can be presented as a sequence of light intensity values according to equation 1:

Supply chains deliver goods and services between shippers and receivers, covering collection, transportation, distribution as well as their handling and storage in between. In particular, transportation services are carried out by different transport modes. In some modern supply chains, different categories of air cargo carriers – combinations, freighter-only, and/or integrators – provide critical transport services.

This chapter develops a methodology for estimating the performance of supply chains served by an air cargo carrier network. The methodology is based on indicators of infrastructure use, technical/technological level, operational factors, economic factors, and environmental performance. This proposed methodology is applied to estimate performance of supply chains served by an integrated air cargo carrier – FedEx Express – operating a single hub in the US domestic air network. Results indicate that the methodology may be useful for estimation of overall supply chain performance under the condition that relevant data are available.