The Advanced Communication Technology Satellite and ISDN

Science.gov (United States)

Lowry, Peter A.

1996-01-01

This paper depicts the Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) system as a global central office switch. The ground portion of the system is the collection of earth stations or T1-VSAT's (T1 very small aperture terminals). The control software for the T1-VSAT's resides in a single CPU. The software consists of two modules, the modem manager and the call manager. The modem manager (MM) controls the RF modem portion of the T1-VSAT. It processes the orderwires from the satellite or from signaling generated by the call manager (CM). The CM controls the Recom Laboratories MSPs by receiving signaling messages from the stacked MSP shelves ro units and sending appropriate setup commands to them. There are two methods used to setup and process calls in the CM; first by dialing up a circuit using a standard telephone handset or, secondly by using an external processor connected to the CPU's second COM port, by sending and receiving signaling orderwires. It is the use of the external processor which permits the ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) Signaling Processor to implement ISDN calls. In August 1993, the initial testing of the ISDN Signaling Processor was carried out at ACTS System Test at Lockheed Marietta, Princeton, NJ using the spacecraft in its test configuration on the ground.

The role of EEPROM devices in upcoming ISDN applications

Science.gov (United States)

Nette, Herbert L.

1991-02-01

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) equipments are rapidly becoming a major market for semiconductor chips. Although at first glance this growing market appears to be geared at logic chips, nonvolatile memories represent important support chips and will become a significant segment of this market. Challenges in these applications consist in operating EEPROMs at lower voltages and lower power and embedding them on ever more complex communications processor chips.

Pristup dizajniranju ISDN marketinškog miksa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivan Bošnjak

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Initial "commercial" ISDN marketing-mix applications confirm the import of marketing in successful implementation of ISDN. Within insufficiently researched complex of ISDN marketing issues the paper presents the concept of the required more vigorous optimal marketing of ISDN on line with the actual environment and requirements of the users. Promotion activities in such approach are only part of marketing instruments. The paper initially defines the basic ISDN marketing-mix variables with some relevant elements and respective attributes. On the level of aggregate variables an optimal model has been proposed which suggests a more efficient combination of ISDN marketing-mix. Modular aspect, flexibility of technical and technological solutions and regulatory control increases the scope of optimal marketing.

ISDN communication: Its workstation technology and application system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sugimura, T; Ogiwara, Y; Saito, T [Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)

1991-07-01

This report describes technology for integrated services digital network (ISDN) which allows workstations to process multimedia data and application systems of advanced group teleworking which use such technology. Hitachi has developed workstations which are more powerful, have more functions, and have larger memory capacities. These factors allowed media which require high-speed processing of large quantities of voice and image data to be integrated into the world of conventional text data processing and communications. In addition, the application of group teleworking system has a large impact through the improvements in the office environment, the changes in the style of office work, and the appearance of new businesses. A prototype of this system was exhibited and demonstrated at TELECOM91. 1 ref., 4 figs., 2 tabs.

Technical dependability of obstetric ultrasound transmission via ISDN.

Science.gov (United States)

Nores, J; Athanassiou, A; Malone, F D; D'Alton, M E

1997-01-01

To evaluate the dependability of a live telemedicine link for the transmission of obstetric ultrasonograms using a commercial telephone network. We established an integrated services digital network (ISDN), consisting of three dedicated telephone lines from three satellite offices, to our central prenatal diagnostic center. All patients had a sonographic evaluation recorded on videotape by a trained sonographer. A live interactive video telemedicine link was then established, and a perinatologist directed the sonographer through the scan. A report was issued on the basis of the telemedicine examination. The number of calls required to obtain satisfactory real-time images was recorded, as were the reasons for suboptimal transmissions. The first 150 transmissions were excluded from this study. The results in the subsequent 100 patients who agreed to participate were analyzed. We were able to provide obstetric interpretations in all 100 patients scheduled to be examined using the telemedicine link. A single connection was required in 85 cases, two calls in 5 cases, three calls in 8 cases, four calls in 1 case, and five calls in another case. A repeat call was required in 20 cases because of poor image transmission; other repeat calls were caused by failure to connect (5 cases), calls disconnected (2 cases), and no image transmission (2 cases). The provision of telemedicine services for obstetric ultrasonography in the community is feasible, but the need for repeat connections because of technical failures needs to be incorporated into cost and time analyses in order to provide a measure of the system's efficiency.

Satellite communications for the next generation telecommunication services and networks

Science.gov (United States)

Chitre, D. M.

1991-01-01

Satellite communications can play an important role in provisioning the next-generation telecommunication services and networks, provided the protocols specifying these services and networks are satellite-compatible and the satellite subnetworks, consisting of earth stations interconnected by the processor and the switch on board the satellite, interwork effectively with the terrestrial networks. The specific parameters and procedures of frame relay and broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) protocols which are impacted by a satellite delay. Congestion and resource management functions for frame relay and B-ISDN are discussed in detail, describing the division of these functions between earth stations and on board the satellite. Specific onboard and ground functions are identified as potential candidates for their implementation via neural network technology.

Can isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) prevent myocardial ischemia during exercise in patients with coronary artery disease; An assessment with radionuclide ventriculography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Konishi, Tokuji; Koyama, Takao; Aoki, Toshikazu; Okamoto, Shinya; Setsuda, Morimichi; Futagami, Yasuo; Nakano, Takeshi (Mie Univ., Tsu (Japan). School of Medicine)

1989-12-01

The effects of sublingual isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) on left ventricular function during exercise were evaluated in 8 patients with coronary artery disease. ECG gated multistage exercise radionuclide ventriculography (RNV) was performed to assess the global and regional left ventricular function before and after sublingual ISND. Chest pain during exercise was observed in six patients (75%) during exercise but subsided negative ISDN. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) during stress did not show improved significant change during exercise (from 64.4 {plus minus} 8.7% to 64.6 {plus minus} 8.3%) but increased significantly from 66.0 {plus minus} 6.3% to 69.9 {plus minus} 8.6% after ISDN. Left ventricular end-systolic volume increased during exercise from 56.9 {plus minus} 19.6 ml to 68.0 {plus minus} 15.9 ml, but the increase was suppressed (from 49.1 {plus minus} 11.0 ml to 44.5 {plus minus} 15.5 ml) after ISDN. ISDN prevented not only cardiac symptoms nor ECG changes but also improved abnormal left ventricular function during exercise. (author).

GLOBECOM '87 - Global Telecommunications Conference, Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 15-18, 1987, Conference Record. Volumes 1, 2, & 3

Science.gov (United States)

The present conference on global telecommunications discusses topics in the fields of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) technology field trial planning and results to date, motion video coding, ISDN networking, future network communications security, flexible and intelligent voice/data networks, Asian and Pacific lightwave and radio systems, subscriber radio systems, the performance of distributed systems, signal processing theory, satellite communications modulation and coding, and terminals for the handicapped. Also discussed are knowledge-based technologies for communications systems, future satellite transmissions, high quality image services, novel digital signal processors, broadband network access interface, traffic engineering for ISDN design and planning, telecommunications software, coherent optical communications, multimedia terminal systems, advanced speed coding, portable and mobile radio communications, multi-Gbit/second lightwave transmission systems, enhanced capability digital terminals, communications network reliability, advanced antimultipath fading techniques, undersea lightwave transmission, image coding, modulation and synchronization, adaptive signal processing, integrated optical devices, VLSI technologies for ISDN, field performance of packet switching, CSMA protocols, optical transport system architectures for broadband ISDN, mobile satellite communications, indoor wireless communication, echo cancellation in communications, and distributed network algorithms.

Network Security Guideline

Science.gov (United States)

1993-06-01

3.2.15.3 ISDN Services over the Telephone Network 3 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) services are subject to the same restrictions as router...to be audited: [SYS$SYSTEM]SYS.EXE, LOGINOUT.EXE, STARTUP.COM, RIGHTSLIST.DAT [SYS$ LIBARY ] I SECURESHR.EXE [SYS$ROOT] SYSEXE.DIR, SYSLIB.DIR...quantification) of the encoded value; ASCII is normally used for asynchronous transmission. compare with digital . ASYNCHRONOUS-Data transmission that is

Peering into the Future of Advertising.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsia, H. J.

All areas in mass communications (i.e., newspapers, magazines, television, radio, films, photos, and books) will be transformed because of the increasing sophistication of computer users, the decreasing costs for interactive computer systems, and the global adoption of integrated services digital networks (ISDN). ISDN refer to the digitization of…

Integrated services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chafcouloff, S.; Michel, G.; Trice, M.; Clark, G.; Cosad, C.; Forbes, K.

1995-01-01

Integrated services is the name given to several services grouped together under a single contract. Four key factors determine the success of integrated services projects: teamwork, common objectives, technology, and shared benefits. For oil companies, integration means smoother, more efficient operations by bringing service companies on board as part of the team. For the service industry, it means a radical change in the way business is conducted, taking on more responsibility in return for greater incentives. This article reviews the need for change and the approach Schlumberger has adopted to meet this challenge. 20 figs., 20 refs

Integrated services

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chafcouloff, S.; Michel, G.; Trice, M. [Schlumberger Integrated Project Management Group, Montrouge (France); Clark, G. [Schlumberger Testing Services, Aberdeen (United Kingdom); Cosad, C.; Forbes, K. [Schlumberger Integrated Project Management Group, Aberdeen (United Kingdom)

1995-12-31

Integrated services is the name given to several services grouped together under a single contract. Four key factors determine the success of integrated services projects: teamwork, common objectives, technology, and shared benefits. For oil companies, integration means smoother, more efficient operations by bringing service companies on board as part of the team. For the service industry, it means a radical change in the way business is conducted, taking on more responsibility in return for greater incentives. This article reviews the need for change and the approach Schlumberger has adopted to meet this challenge. 20 figs., 20 refs

The beginning of a new era - OTC's satellite business services

Science.gov (United States)

Bachmann, Erik

OTC has developed a new range of digital services which will provide business organizations in Australia with high quality private international telecommunications. This range will be known as Satnet and the paper deals with Satnet 2 which is the service offerings using medium-size earth stations (nominally 5- and 7-meter antenna apertures), installed at customers' premises. These services will rely on the Intelsat 6/4 GHz space segment. Operation will be totally digital and will be integrated with no distinction between individual applications such as voice, data, video, etc. Carrier capacities between 64 kb/s and 8.448 Mb/s can be provided and ISDN performance requirements can be supported. The paper describes key service features, systems design and transmission analysis. Consideration is also given to operation, installation and frequency coordination aspects.

Toward a North American standard for mobile data services

Science.gov (United States)

Dean, Richard A.; Levesque, Allen H.

1991-09-01

The rapid introduction of digital mobile communications systems is an important part of the emerging digital communications scene. These developments pose both a potential problem and a challenge. On one hand, these separate market driven developments can result in an uncontrolled mixture of analog and digital links which inhibit data modem services across the mobile/Public Switched network (PSTN). On the other hand, the near coincidence of schedules for development of some of these systems, i.e., Digital Cellular, Mobile Satellite, Land Mobile Radio, and ISDN, provides an opportunity to address interoperability problems by defining interfaces, control, and service standards that are compatible among these new services. In this paper we address the problem of providing data services interoperation between mobile terminals and data devices on the PSTN. The expected data services include G3 Fax, asynchronous data, and the government's STU-3 secure voice system, and future data services such as ISDN. We address a common architecture and a limited set of issues that are key to interoperable mobile data services. We believe that common mobile data standards will both improve the quality of data service and simplify the systems for manufacturers, data users, and service providers.

Telecommuting (Work-At-Home) at NASA Lewis Research Center

Science.gov (United States)

Srinidhi, Saragur M.

1994-01-01

This report presents a study in evaluating the viability of providing a work-at-home (telecommuting) program for Lewis Research Center's corporate employees using Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). Case studies have been presented for a range of applications from casual data access to interactive access. The network performance of telemedia applications were studied against future requirements for such level of remote connectivity. Many of the popular ISDN devices were characterized for network and service functionality. A set of recommendations to develop a telecommuting policy have been proposed.

Design mobile satellite system architecture as an integral part of the cellular access digital network

Science.gov (United States)

Chien, E. S. K.; Marinho, J. A.; Russell, J. E., Sr.

1988-01-01

The Cellular Access Digital Network (CADN) is the access vehicle through which cellular technology is brought into the mainstream of the evolving integrated telecommunications network. Beyond the integrated end-to-end digital access and per call network services provisioning of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the CADN engenders the added capability of mobility freedom via wireless access. One key element of the CADN network architecture is the standard user to network interface that is independent of RF transmission technology. Since the Mobile Satellite System (MSS) is envisioned to not only complement but also enhance the capabilities of the terrestrial cellular telecommunications network, compatibility and interoperability between terrestrial cellular and mobile satellite systems are vitally important to provide an integrated moving telecommunications network of the future. From a network standpoint, there exist very strong commonalities between the terrestrial cellular system and the mobile satellite system. Therefore, the MSS architecture should be designed as an integral part of the CADN. This paper describes the concept of the CADN, the functional architecture of the MSS, and the user-network interface signaling protocols.

ACB Service Final Closure

CERN Multimedia

IT Department

2004-01-01

As previously announced in CERN weekly Bulletin 18/2004 of 26 April 2004, and following a discussion at the Desktop Forum on 28 October, the Automatic Call Back (ACB) service will be definitely closed on Friday 10 December 2004. If the ACB phone number is dialed after that date over plain telephone or ISDN, the call will remain unanswered. Therefore, the remaining ACB users are encouraged to switch as soon as possible to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) which provide equivalent or better service. Some suggestions on how to make alternative arrangements have been made available on the Remote Access web site. IT Department

ACB Service Final Closure

CERN Multimedia

IT Department

2004-01-01

As previously announced in CERN weekly Bulletin 18/2004 of 26th April 2004, and following a discussion at the Desktop Forum on 28th October, the Automatic Call Back (ACB) service will be definitely closed on Friday 10th December 2004. If the ACB phone number is dialed after that date over plain telephone or ISDN, the call will remain unanswered. Therefore, the remaining ACB users are encouraged to switch as soon as possible to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) which provide equivalent or better service. Some suggestions on how to make alternative arrangements have been made available on the Remote Access web site: http://www.cern.ch/ras IT Department

Game analysis of product-service integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heping Zhong

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This paper aims at defining the value creation mechanism and income distribution strategies of product-service integration in order to promote product-service integration of a firm.Design/methodology/approach: This paper conducts researches quantitatively on the coordination mechanism of product-service integration by using game theory, and uses the methods of Shapley value and Equal growth rate to further discuss income distribution strategies of product-service integration.Findings: Product-service integration increases the total income of a firm and the added value of the income decreases as the unit price demand variation coefficient of products and services increases, while decreases as the marginal cost of products increases, decreases as the marginal cost of services increases. Moreover, the findings suggest that both income distribution strategies of product-service integration based on Shapley value method and Equal growth rate method can make the product department and service department of a firm win-win and realize the pareto improvement. The choice of what kind of distribution strategy to coordinate the actions between departments depends on the department playing dominant role in the firm. Generally speaking, for a firm at the center of market, when the product department is the main contributor to firm income, the service department will choose the income distribution strategy of product-service integration based on Shapley value method; when the service department is the main contributor to firm income, the service department will choose the income distribution strategy of product-service integration based on Equal growth rate method.Research limitations/implications: This paper makes some strict assumptions such as complete information, risk neutral, linear cost function and so on and the discussion is limited to the simple relationship between product department and service department.Practical implications: Product-service

GLOBECOM '85 - Global Telecommunications Conference, New Orleans, LA, December 2-5, 1985, Conference Record. Volumes 1, 2, & 3

Science.gov (United States)

Various papers on global telecommunications are presented. The general topics addressed include: multiservice integration with optical fibers, multicompany owned telecommunication networks, softworks quality and reliability, advanced on-board processing, impact of new services and systems on operations and maintenance, analytical studies of protocols for data communication networks, topics in packet radio networking, CCITT No. 7 to support new services, document processing and communication, antenna technology and system aspects in satellite communications. Also considered are: communication systems modelling methodology, experimental integrated local area voice/data nets, spread spectrum communications, motion video at the DS-0 rate, optical and data communications, intelligent work stations, switch performance analysis, novel radio communication systems, wireless local networks, ISDN services, LAN communication protocols, user-system interface, radio propagation and performance, mobile satellite system, software for computer networks, VLSI for ISDN terminals, quality management, man-machine interfaces in switching, and local area network performance.

Laboratories: Integrating Services

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

2011-04-04

This podcast highlights the importance of integrating laboratory services to maximize service delivery to patients.  Created: 4/4/2011 by National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP).   Date Released: 4/7/2011.

Services and traffic policing mechanisms in B-ISDN networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nleya, B.M.

1995-10-01

The paper looks at some of the services that will be offered by ATM in future and their general characteristics. The paper then reviews ATM technology and the various traffic and control functions. Finally the performance comparisons of both the static and dynamic rate Leaky Bucket schemes is presented. The conclusions are that the dynamic rate scheme can control several traffic parameters as compared to the static one, but the complexity in its realization might mean higher costs. (author). 3 refs, 13 figs, 2 tabs

Web Services Integration on the Fly

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Leong, Hoe W

2008-01-01

.... Given data, software agents and supporting software infrastructure, web services integration on the fly means that human coding is not required to integrate web services into a Web Service Architecture...

SQL Server Integration Services

CERN Document Server

Hamilton, Bill

2007-01-01

SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) lets you build high-performance data integration solutions. SSIS solutions wrap sophisticated workflows around tasks that extract, transform, and load (ETL) data from and to a wide variety of data sources. This Short Cut begins with an overview of key SSIS concepts, capabilities, standard workflow and ETL elements, the development environment, execution, deployment, and migration from Data Transformation Services (DTS). Next, you'll see how to apply the concepts you've learned through hands-on examples of common integration scenarios. Once you've

Integration of services into workflow applications

CERN Document Server

Czarnul, Pawel

2015-01-01

Describing state-of-the-art solutions in distributed system architectures, Integration of Services into Workflow Applications presents a concise approach to the integration of loosely coupled services into workflow applications. It discusses key challenges related to the integration of distributed systems and proposes solutions, both in terms of theoretical aspects such as models and workflow scheduling algorithms, and technical solutions such as software tools and APIs.The book provides an in-depth look at workflow scheduling and proposes a way to integrate several different types of services

GLOBECOM '84 - Global Telecommunications Conference, Atlanta, GA, November 26-29, 1984, Conference Record. Volume 1

Science.gov (United States)

The subjects discussed are related to LSI/VLSI based subscriber transmission and customer access for the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), special applications of fiber optics, ISDN and competitive telecommunication services, technical preparations for the Geostationary-Satellite Orbit Conference, high-capacity statistical switching fabrics, networking and distributed systems software, adaptive arrays and cancelers, synchronization and tracking, speech processing, advances in communication terminals, full-color videotex, and a performance analysis of protocols. Advances in data communications are considered along with transmission network plans and progress, direct broadcast satellite systems, packet radio system aspects, radio-new and developing technologies and applications, the management of software quality, and Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) aspects of telematic services. Attention is given to personal computers and OSI, the role of software reliability measurement in information systems, and an active array antenna for the next-generation direct broadcast satellite.

Developing Pre-service Teachers' Technology Integration ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Developing Pre-service Teachers' Technology Integration Competencies in Science and Mathematics Teaching: Experiences from Tanzania and Uganda. ... This study investigated the ICT integration practices in pre-service teacher education in the School of Education at Makerere University (College of Education and ...

Measuring the degree of integration for an integrated service network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chenglin Ye

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Background: Integration involves the coordination of services provided by autonomous agencies and improves the organization and delivery of multiple services for target patients. Current measures generally do not distinguish between agencies' perception and expectation. We propose a method for quantifying the agencies' service integration. Using the data from the Children's Treatment Network (CTN, we aimed to measure the degree of integration for the CTN agencies in York and Simcoe.  Theory and Methods: We quantified the integration by the agreement between perceived and expected levels of involvement and calculated four scores from different perspectives for each agency. We used the average score to measure the global network integration and examined the sensitivity of the global score.  Results: Most agencies' integration scores were less than 65%. As measured by the agreement between every other agency's perception and expectation, the overall integration of CTN in Simcoe and York was 44% (95% CI: 39% - 49% and 52% (95% CI: 48% - 56%, respectively. The sensitivity analysis showed that the global scores were robust.  Conclusion: Our method extends existing measures of integration and possesses a good extent of validity. We can also apply the method in monitoring improvement and linking integration with other outcomes.

Measuring the degree of integration for an integrated service network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chenglin Ye

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Background: Integration involves the coordination of services provided by autonomous agencies and improves the organization and delivery of multiple services for target patients. Current measures generally do not distinguish between agencies' perception and expectation. We propose a method for quantifying the agencies' service integration. Using the data from the Children's Treatment Network (CTN, we aimed to measure the degree of integration for the CTN agencies in York and Simcoe. Theory and Methods: We quantified the integration by the agreement between perceived and expected levels of involvement and calculated four scores from different perspectives for each agency. We used the average score to measure the global network integration and examined the sensitivity of the global score. Results: Most agencies' integration scores were less than 65%. As measured by the agreement between every other agency's perception and expectation, the overall integration of CTN in Simcoe and York was 44% (95% CI: 39% - 49% and 52% (95% CI: 48% - 56%, respectively. The sensitivity analysis showed that the global scores were robust. Conclusion: Our method extends existing measures of integration and possesses a good extent of validity. We can also apply the method in monitoring improvement and linking integration with other outcomes. 

Semi-automated software service integration in virtual organisations

Science.gov (United States)

Afsarmanesh, Hamideh; Sargolzaei, Mahdi; Shadi, Mahdieh

2015-08-01

To enhance their business opportunities, organisations involved in many service industries are increasingly active in pursuit of both online provision of their business services (BSs) and collaborating with others. Collaborative Networks (CNs) in service industry sector, however, face many challenges related to sharing and integration of their collection of provided BSs and their corresponding software services. Therefore, the topic of service interoperability for which this article introduces a framework is gaining momentum in research for supporting CNs. It contributes to generation of formal machine readable specification for business processes, aimed at providing their unambiguous definitions, as needed for developing their equivalent software services. The framework provides a model and implementation architecture for discovery and composition of shared services, to support the semi-automated development of integrated value-added services. In support of service discovery, a main contribution of this research is the formal representation of services' behaviour and applying desired service behaviour specified by users for automated matchmaking with other existing services. Furthermore, to support service integration, mechanisms are developed for automated selection of the most suitable service(s) according to a number of service quality aspects. Two scenario cases are presented, which exemplify several specific features related to service discovery and service integration aspects.

Does mental health service integration affect compulsory admissions?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André I. Wierdsma

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Background: Over recent years, the number of compulsory admissions in many countries has increased, probably as a result of the shift from inpatient to outpatient mental health care. This might be mitigated by formal or collaborative relationships between services. Methods: In a retrospective record linkage study, we compared two neighboring districts, varying in level of service integration. Two periods were combined: 1991–1993 and 2001–2003. We included patients aged 18–60, who had a first emergency compulsory admission (n=830. Their psychiatric history was assessed, and service-use after admission was monitored over a 12-month follow-up. Results: Over a 10-year period, compulsory admission rates increased by 47%. Difference in relative increase between the integrated and non-integrated services was 14%. Patient characteristics showed different profiles in the two districts. Length of stay was >10 days shorter in the integrated district, where the proportion of involuntary readmissions decreased more, and where aftercare was swift and provided to about 10% more patients than in the non-integrated district. Conclusions: Services outcomes showed better results where mental healthcare was more integrated. However, limited effects were found and other factors than integration of services may be more important in preventing compulsory admissions.

An integration bridge for heterogeneous e-service environments

OpenAIRE

Baeta, Henrique Jorge Lourenço

2012-01-01

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores Home automation has evolved from a single integration of services (provided by devices, equipment, etc.) in the environment to a more broad integration of these core services with others(external to the environment) to create some added-value services for home users. This presents a key challenge of how to integrate disparate and heterogeneous e-service networks. To this, there exist already...

Mixture block coding with progressive transmission in packet video. Appendix 1: Item 2. M.S. Thesis

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yun-Chung

1989-01-01

Video transmission will become an important part of future multimedia communication because of dramatically increasing user demand for video, and rapid evolution of coding algorithm and VLSI technology. Video transmission will be part of the broadband-integrated services digital network (B-ISDN). Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is a viable candidate for implementation of B-ISDN due to its inherent flexibility, service independency, and high performance. According to the characteristics of ATM, the information has to be coded into discrete cells which travel independently in the packet switching network. A practical realization of an ATM video codec called Mixture Block Coding with Progressive Transmission (MBCPT) is presented. This variable bit rate coding algorithm shows how a constant quality performance can be obtained according to user demand. Interactions between codec and network are emphasized including packetization, service synchronization, flow control, and error recovery. Finally, some simulation results based on MBCPT coding with error recovery are presented.

Achieving Customer Satisfaction through Integrated Products and Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Raja, Jawwad; Bourne, Dorota; Goffin, Keith

2013-01-01

Complex products such as manufacturing equipment have always needed maintenance and repair services. Increasingly, leading manufacturers are integrating products and services to generate increased revenues and achieve customer satisfaction. Designing integrated products and services requires...... a different approach to new product development and a clear understanding of how customers perceive the value they obtain from actual usage of products and services—so-called value-in-use. However, there is a lack of research on integrated products and services and how they impact customer satisfaction....... An exploratory study was undertaken to understand customers' views on integrated products and services and the value-in-use derived from such offerings. As value-in-use and its impacts are complicated concepts, a technique from psychology—Repertory Grid Technique—was used to gather data in 33 interviews...

Integrated Data Management for Mobile Services in the Real World

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hage, C.; Jensen, Christian Søndergaard; Pedersen, Torben Bach

2003-01-01

Market research companies predict a huge market for services to be delivered to mobile users. Services in5 clude route guidance, point-of-interest search, metering services such as road pricing and parking payment, traffic monitoring, etc. We believe that no single such service will be the killer...... service, but that suites of integrated services are called for. Such integrated services reuse integrated content obtained from multiple content providers. This paper describes concepts and techniques underlying the data management system deployed by a Danish mobile content integrator. While geo...

Bringing service design to manufacturing companies: integrating PSS and service design approaches

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Costa, Nina; Patrício, Lia; Morelli, Nicola

2018-01-01

in a manufacturing industry. This paper details how the application supports the design of product–service system solutions from the exploration to the implementation stages, highlighting the physical evidence of service, and contributes to advance design research at the intersection of PSS and Service Design.......Manufacturing companies increasingly try to innovate in their offers to consumers by creating more complete solutions that combine product and service components. However, shifting from a product-centric perspective to a solution-oriented perspective is challenging. The present study adopted...... a design research methodology and built on Service-Dominant logic, integrating the human-oriented perspective of Service Design with an organizational network-oriented perspective of Product–Service System. It creates a new Integrative PSS approach, evolves design models, and provides an application...

Integral quality programs for radiodiagnostics Services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alastuey, F.; Barranco, C.; Marco, R.; Perez, C.; Sanchez, J.; Pardo, J.; Madrid, G.

1993-01-01

The aim of the work entitled ''Integral Quality Programs for Radiodiagnostics Services'' is to present the experience accumulated over the past 10 years by the Radiodiagnostics Service of C.M.E. Ramon y Cajal in Zaragoza. The term ''integral quality'' will be defined conceptually in order to differentiate it from the classical quality control which refers exclusively to the control of radiology equipment. The problem will be reviewed from the historical point of view and a basic, homologated model, contrasted on the basis of the work of these 10 years, is proposed mainly to serve as the backbone for the working system in a Radiodiagnostics Service. (Author) 46 ref

Air ambulance services--integrated emergency care.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferdinand, M

1994-10-01

In the name of cost-conscious care, air ambulance program directors and service contractors are seeing the dawn of integrated networks as a boon to their business. As integrated networks form, facilities will become increasingly specialized in the types of services they provide. Patients will need to be moved around the system, resulting in more frequent patient transport and more points of transfer. Many programs are considering aircraft replacement and additions, rather than leasing. Financial benefits could come on depreciation and the high resale value of aircraft. Unless reimbursement levels increase, more program mergers and affiliations may take place to spread and reduce cost. Air ambulance services will increasingly become part of a facility's strategic plan.

[Is merging organizations the solution to service integration?].

Science.gov (United States)

Demers, Louis; Dupuis, Alain; Poirier, Mario

2002-01-01

Organizational models inherited from the time when institutionalizing patients was common practice are now obsolete. Service coordination, undergone earlier within a same institution, is now governed by professionnals linked to various organizations and different settings. One of the difficulties of integration of these services is that contributing organizations often continue to operate individually, consequently going against the pursued goal. The solution most often proposed to counter this compartimentalization consists in reinforcing integration of organizations, which will in time favor integration of various services. One of the ways to realize this organizational integration is to reduce the number of existing organizations, by merging for example, a certain number of them. It is this path of hierarchical organization that the Québec health care system has taken during the 1990. Other paths that of networking have also been experienced during the same period. To judge of the relevance of these options, the authors propose a reversal of the dominating perspective according to which service integration necessarily pass through installing mecanisms of organizational integration. Withought minimizing the importance of such mecanisms, the authors put forth that integration of services commands first and foremost collaboration between professional health workers. Through this angle, the relevance of an organizational integration model depends on the impact it will have on the capacity and willingness of health workers to work in a concerted way. The authors submit that the fact of giving to a sole authority the govern of existing organizations is not the panacea some would like to believe.

Designing Integrated Product- Service System Solutions in Manufacturing Industries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Costa, Nina; Patrício, Lia; Morelli, Nicola

2015-01-01

Manufacturing firms are increasingly evolving towards the design of integrated product-service solutions but servitization literature does not provide specific guidance on how to design these integrated solutions. Building upon ProductService System (PSS) and Service Design (SD) approaches...... how it brings new insights to manufacturing companies moving to a service, value cocreation perspective....

Multidisciplinary management--an opportunity for service integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Cameron, M

1997-01-01

The management team of the future will enter an environment requiring facilitation, participation, clinical, and empowerment skills. Those individuals who possess a clinical orientation as well as business expertise will be sought to manage multidisciplinary units. The rapid changes in the health-care environment have forced organizations to restructure their operations. To achieve quality care, customer satisfaction, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency, service integration across the organization will be required. As we approach the 21st century, this standard will evolve until "all levels are managing patient care." Some of the restructuring trends occurring in the health-care industry have been collaboration service integration, management consolidation, and job elimination. The emphasis for the multidisciplinary manager of the future will include integrating the professional and clinical services, managing information, building community partnerships, promoting physician collaboration, and managing the change process. A model organization in the next century will move toward a people-oriented system with inclusion and empowerment initiatives. Service integration will affect all organizations, but the disciplines within the Clinical Support System will be the most affected. Future opportunities of leadership will exist for pathologists, nurses, or medical technologists as the professional silos of managers and clinicians continue to crumble.

A middleware-based platform for the integration of bioinformatic services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guzmán Llambías

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Performing Bioinformatic´s experiments involve an intensive access to distributed services and information resources through Internet. Although existing tools facilitate the implementation of workflow-oriented applications, they lack of capabilities to integrate services beyond low-scale applications, particularly integrating services with heterogeneous interaction patterns and in a larger scale. This is particularly required to enable a large-scale distributed processing of biological data generated by massive sequencing technologies. On the other hand, such integration mechanisms are provided by middleware products like Enterprise Service Buses (ESB, which enable to integrate distributed systems following a Service Oriented Architecture. This paper proposes an integration platform, based on enterprise middleware, to integrate Bioinformatics services. It presents a multi-level reference architecture and focuses on ESB-based mechanisms to provide asynchronous communications, event-based interactions and data transformation capabilities. The paper presents a formal specification of the platform using the Event-B model.

Program Collaboration and Service Integration At-a-Glance

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

Dr. Kevin A. Fenton, Director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, discusses program collaboration and service integration, a strategy that promotes better collaboration between public health programs and supports appropriate service integration at the point-of-care.

A Case Study for Business Integration as a Service

OpenAIRE

Chang, Victor

2013-01-01

This paper presents Business Integration as a Service (BIaaS) to allow two services to work together in the Cloud to achieve a streamline process. We illustrate this integration using two services; Return on Investment (ROI) Measurement as a Service (RMaaS) and Risk Analysis as a Service (RAaaS) in the case study at the University of Southampton. The case study demonstrates the cost-savings and the risk analysis achieved, so two services can work as a single service. Advanced techniques are u...

INTEGRATION OF VIRTUAL ENTERPRISES USING SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miladin Stefanovic

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Virtual enterprise integration (VEI is virtually the most critical success factor for making virtual enterprise (VE a real, competitive, and widely implemented organizational an d management concept. One of possible approaches in virtual enterprise integration is employment of web services. In this paper we will present process-oriented approach for developing an SOA for VEI. The general assumption of suggested approach is that service oriented architecture is based on business service and that business services mostly correspond to exchanged documentation in a real business system. CASE tool for web service specification is also presented.

Computer Aided Product Service Systems Design : Service CAD and Its integration with Life Cycle Simulation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Komoto, H.

2009-01-01

Integration of product design into service design, or vice versa, is considered to bring more efficient and effective value addition. Besides EcoDesign tools and methods, a methodology to design such an integration of products and services from a systemic perspective, or product-service systems

Integrating complementary and alternative medicine into mainstream healthcare services: the perspectives of health service managers.

Science.gov (United States)

Singer, Judy; Adams, Jon

2014-05-22

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly included within mainstream integrative healthcare (IHC) services. Health service managers are key stakeholders central to ensuring effective integrative health care services. Yet, little research has specifically investigated the role or perspective of health service managers with regards to integrative health care services under their management. In response, this paper reports findings from an exploratory study focusing exclusively on the perspectives of health service managers of integrative health care services in Australia regarding the role of CAM within their service and the health service managers rational for incorporating CAM into clinical care. Health service managers from seven services were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the health service managers. The services addressed trauma and chronic conditions and comprised: five community-based programs including drug and alcohol rehabilitation, refugee mental health and women's health; and two hospital-based specialist services. The CAM practices included in the services investigated included acupuncture, naturopathy, Western herbal medicine and massage. Findings reveal that the health service managers in this study understand CAM to enhance the holistic capacity of their service by: filling therapeutic gaps in existing healthcare practices; by treating the whole person; and by increasing healthcare choices. Health service managers also identified CAM as addressing therapeutic gaps through the provision of a mind-body approach in psychological trauma and in chronic disease management treatment. Health service managers describe the addition of CAM in their service as enabling patients who would otherwise not be able to afford CAM to gain access to these treatments thereby increasing healthcare choices. Some health service managers expressly align the notion of treating the whole person

Technology Integration Support Levels for In-Service Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Mable Evans

2017-01-01

In-service teachers across the globe are expected to integrate technology in their respective instructional content area. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of in-service teachers concerning building-level support for technology integration. Participants in the study were asked to participate in semi-structured…

Innovation in Evaluating the Impact of Integrated Service-Delivery: The Integra Indexes of HIV and Reproductive Health Integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayhew, Susannah H; Ploubidis, George B; Sloggett, Andy; Church, Kathryn; Obure, Carol D; Birdthistle, Isolde; Sweeney, Sedona; Warren, Charlotte E; Watts, Charlotte; Vassall, Anna

2016-01-01

The body of knowledge on evaluating complex interventions for integrated healthcare lacks both common definitions of 'integrated service delivery' and standard measures of impact. Using multiple data sources in combination with statistical modelling the aim of this study is to develop a measure of HIV-reproductive health (HIV-RH) service integration that can be used to assess the degree of service integration, and the degree to which integration may have health benefits to clients, or reduce service costs. Data were drawn from the Integra Initiative's client flow (8,263 clients in Swaziland and 25,539 in Kenya) and costing tools implemented between 2008-2012 in 40 clinics providing RH services in Kenya and Swaziland. We used latent variable measurement models to derive dimensions of HIV-RH integration using these data, which quantified the extent and type of integration between HIV and RH services in Kenya and Swaziland. The modelling produced two clear and uncorrelated dimensions of integration at facility level leading to the development of two sub-indexes: a Structural Integration Index (integrated physical and human resource infrastructure) and a Functional Integration Index (integrated delivery of services to clients). The findings highlight the importance of multi-dimensional assessments of integration, suggesting that structural integration is not sufficient to achieve the integrated delivery of care to clients--i.e. "functional integration". These Indexes are an important methodological contribution for evaluating complex multi-service interventions. They help address the need to broaden traditional evaluations of integrated HIV-RH care through the incorporation of a functional integration measure, to avoid misleading conclusions on its 'impact' on health outcomes. This is particularly important for decision-makers seeking to promote integration in resource constrained environments.

Innovation in Evaluating the Impact of Integrated Service-Delivery: The Integra Indexes of HIV and Reproductive Health Integration.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Susannah H Mayhew

Full Text Available The body of knowledge on evaluating complex interventions for integrated healthcare lacks both common definitions of 'integrated service delivery' and standard measures of impact. Using multiple data sources in combination with statistical modelling the aim of this study is to develop a measure of HIV-reproductive health (HIV-RH service integration that can be used to assess the degree of service integration, and the degree to which integration may have health benefits to clients, or reduce service costs.Data were drawn from the Integra Initiative's client flow (8,263 clients in Swaziland and 25,539 in Kenya and costing tools implemented between 2008-2012 in 40 clinics providing RH services in Kenya and Swaziland. We used latent variable measurement models to derive dimensions of HIV-RH integration using these data, which quantified the extent and type of integration between HIV and RH services in Kenya and Swaziland. The modelling produced two clear and uncorrelated dimensions of integration at facility level leading to the development of two sub-indexes: a Structural Integration Index (integrated physical and human resource infrastructure and a Functional Integration Index (integrated delivery of services to clients. The findings highlight the importance of multi-dimensional assessments of integration, suggesting that structural integration is not sufficient to achieve the integrated delivery of care to clients--i.e. "functional integration".These Indexes are an important methodological contribution for evaluating complex multi-service interventions. They help address the need to broaden traditional evaluations of integrated HIV-RH care through the incorporation of a functional integration measure, to avoid misleading conclusions on its 'impact' on health outcomes. This is particularly important for decision-makers seeking to promote integration in resource constrained environments.

Upstairs downstairs: vertical integration of a pediatric service.

Science.gov (United States)

Racine, A D; Stein, R E; Belamarich, P F; Levine, E; Okun, A; Porder, K; Rosenfeld, J L; Schechter, M

1998-07-01

The combined effects of recent changes in health care financing and training priorities have compelled academic medical centers to develop innovative structures to maintain service commitments yet conform to health care marketplace demands. In 1992, a municipal hospital in the Bronx, New York, affiliated with a major academic medical center reorganized its pediatric service into a vertically integrated system of four interdependent practice teams that provided comprehensive care in the ambulatory as well as inpatient settings. One of the goals of the new system was to conserve inpatient resources. To describe the development of a new vertically integrated pediatric service at an inner-city municipal hospital and to test whether its adoption was associated with the use of fewer inpatient resources. A descriptive analysis of the rationale, goals, implementation strategies, and structure of the vertically integrated pediatric service combined with a before-and-after comparison of in-hospital resource consumption. A before-and-after comparison was conducted for two periods: the period before vertical integration, from January 1989 to December 1991, and the period after the adoption of vertical integration, from July 1992 to December 1994. Four measures of inpatient resource use were compared after adjustment for case mix index: mean certified length of stay per case, mean number of radiologic tests per case, mean number of ancillary tests per case, and mean number of laboratory tests per case. Difference-in-differences-in-differences estimators were used to control for institution-wide trends throughout the time period and regional trends in inpatient pediatric practice occurring across institutions. Results. In 1992, the Department of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine reorganized the pediatric service at Jacobi Medical Center, one of its principal municipal hospital affiliates, into a vertically integrated pediatric service that combines ambulatory

Integrating Web Services into Map Image Applications

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Tu, Shengru

2003-01-01

Web services have been opening a wide avenue for software integration. In this paper, we have reported our experiments with three applications that are built by utilizing and providing web services for Geographic Information Systems (GIS...

Biobjective VoIP Service Management in Cloud Infrastructure

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jorge M. Cortés-Mendoza

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP allows communication of voice and/or data over the internet in less expensive and reliable manner than traditional ISDN systems. This solution typically allows flexible interconnection between organization and companies on any domains. Cloud VoIP solutions can offer even cheaper and scalable service when virtualized telephone infrastructure is used in the most efficient way. Scheduling and load balancing algorithms are fundamental parts of this approach. Unfortunately, VoIP scheduling techniques do not take into account uncertainty in dynamic and unpredictable cloud environments. In this paper, we formulate the problem of scheduling of VoIP services in distributed cloud environments and propose a new model for biobjective optimization. We consider the special case of the on-line nonclairvoyant dynamic bin-packing problem and discuss solutions for provider cost and quality of service optimization. We propose twenty call allocation strategies and evaluate their performance by comprehensive simulation analysis on real workload considering six months of the MIXvoip company service.

Development of an Web Service Architecture for Enterprise Application Integration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ji-Hyeon; Jung, Jae-Cheon; Chang, Young-Woo; Chang, Hoon-Seon; Kim, Jae-Cheol; Kim, Hang-Bae; Kim, Kyu-Ho; Lee, Dong-Chul

2007-01-01

The purpose of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is to enable the interoperability between two or more enterprise software systems. These systems, for example, can be an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system or a Condition Monitoring system. Traditional EAI approach, based on point-to-point connection, is expensive, vendor specific with limited modules and restricted interoperability with other ERPs and applications. To overcome these drawbacks, the Web Service based EAI has emerged. It allows the integration without point to point linking and with less costs. Many approaches of Web service based EAI are combined with ORACLE, SAP, PeopleSoft, WebSphere, SIEBEL etc. as a system integration platform. The approach still has the restriction that only predefined clients can access the services. This means clients must know exactly the protocol for calling the services and if they don't have the access information they never can get the services. This is because these Web services are based on syntactic service description. In this paper, a semantic based EAI approach, that allows the uninformed clients to access the services, is introduced. The semantic EAI is designed with the Web services that have semantic service descriptions. The Semantic Web Services(SWS) are described in Web Ontology Language for Services(OWL-S), a semantic service ontology language, and advertised in Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI). Clients find desired services through the UDDI and get services from service providers through Web Service Description Language(WSDL)

SODIM: Service Oriented Data Integration based on MapReduce

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ghada ElSheikh

2013-09-01

Data integration systems can benefit from innovative dynamic infrastructure solutions such as Clouds, with its more agility, lower cost, device independency, location independency, and scalability. This study consolidates the data integration system, Service Orientation, and distributed processing to develop a new data integration system called Service Oriented Data Integration based on MapReduce (SODIM that improves the system performance, especially with large number of data sources, and that can efficiently be hosted on modern dynamic infrastructures as Clouds.

jORCA: easily integrating bioinformatics Web Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Martín-Requena, Victoria; Ríos, Javier; García, Maximiliano; Ramírez, Sergio; Trelles, Oswaldo

2010-02-15

Web services technology is becoming the option of choice to deploy bioinformatics tools that are universally available. One of the major strengths of this approach is that it supports machine-to-machine interoperability over a network. However, a weakness of this approach is that various Web Services differ in their definition and invocation protocols, as well as their communication and data formats-and this presents a barrier to service interoperability. jORCA is a desktop client aimed at facilitating seamless integration of Web Services. It does so by making a uniform representation of the different web resources, supporting scalable service discovery, and automatic composition of workflows. Usability is at the top of the jORCA agenda; thus it is a highly customizable and extensible application that accommodates a broad range of user skills featuring double-click invocation of services in conjunction with advanced execution-control, on the fly data standardization, extensibility of viewer plug-ins, drag-and-drop editing capabilities, plus a file-based browsing style and organization of favourite tools. The integration of bioinformatics Web Services is made easier to support a wider range of users. .

Interworking evolution of mobile satellite and terrestrial networks

Science.gov (United States)

Matyas, R.; Kelleher, P.; Moller, P.; Jones, T.

1993-01-01

There is considerable interest among mobile satellite service providers in interworking with terrestrial networks to provide a universal global network. With such interworking, subscribers may be provided a common set of services such as those planned for the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and future Intelligent Networks (IN's). This paper first reviews issues in satellite interworking. Next the status and interworking plans of terrestrial mobile communications service providers are examined with early examples of mobile satellite interworking including a discussion of the anticipated evolution towards full interworking between mobile satellite and both fixed and mobile terrestrial networks.

Development of an Web Service Architecture for Enterprise Application Integration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ji-Hyeon; Jung, Jae-Cheon; Chang, Young-Woo; Chang, Hoon-Seon; Kim, Jae-Cheol; Kim, Hang-Bae [Korea Power Engineering Company, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Kyu-Ho; Lee, Dong-Chul [Korea Electric Power Data Network, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2007-07-01

The purpose of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is to enable the interoperability between two or more enterprise software systems. These systems, for example, can be an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system or a Condition Monitoring system. Traditional EAI approach, based on point-to-point connection, is expensive, vendor specific with limited modules and restricted interoperability with other ERPs and applications. To overcome these drawbacks, the Web Service based EAI has emerged. It allows the integration without point to point linking and with less costs. Many approaches of Web service based EAI are combined with ORACLE, SAP, PeopleSoft, WebSphere, SIEBEL etc. as a system integration platform. The approach still has the restriction that only predefined clients can access the services. This means clients must know exactly the protocol for calling the services and if they don't have the access information they never can get the services. This is because these Web services are based on syntactic service description. In this paper, a semantic based EAI approach, that allows the uninformed clients to access the services, is introduced. The semantic EAI is designed with the Web services that have semantic service descriptions. The Semantic Web Services(SWS) are described in Web Ontology Language for Services(OWL-S), a semantic service ontology language, and advertised in Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI). Clients find desired services through the UDDI and get services from service providers through Web Service Description Language(WSDL)

Program Collaboration and Service Integration At-a-Glance

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

2010-09-15

Dr. Kevin A. Fenton, Director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, discusses program collaboration and service integration, a strategy that promotes better collaboration between public health programs and supports appropriate service integration at the point-of-care.  Created: 9/15/2010 by National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.   Date Released: 9/15/2010.

The medical libraries of Vietnam--a service in transition.

Science.gov (United States)

Brennen, P W

1992-07-01

The medical libraries of Vietnam maintain high profiles within their institutions and are recognized by health care professionals and administrators as an important part of the health care system. Despite the multitude of problems in providing even a minimal level of medical library services, librarians, clinicians, and researchers nevertheless are determined that enhanced services be made available. Currently, services can be described as basic and unsophisticated, yet viable and surprisingly well organized. The lack of hard western currency required to buy materials and the lack of library technology will be major obstacles to improving information services. Vietnam, like many developing nations, is about to enter a period of technological upheaval, which ultimately will result in a transition from the traditional library limited by walls to a national resource that will rely increasingly on electronic access to international knowledge networks. Technology such as CD-ROM, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and satellite telecommunication networks such as Internet can provide the technical backbone to provide access to remote and widely distributed electronic databases to support the information needs of the health care community. Over the long term, access to such databases likely will be cost-effective, in contrast to the assuredly astronomical cost of building a comparable domestic print collection. The advent of new, low-cost electronic technologies probably will revolutionize health care information services in developing nations. However, for the immediate future, the medical libraries of Vietnam will require ongoing sustained support from the international community, so that minimal levels of resources will be available to support the information needs of the health care community. It is remarkable, and a credit to the determination of Vietnam's librarians that, in a country with a legacy of war, economic deprivation, and international isolation

Business Level Service-Oriented Enterprise Application Integration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pokraev, S.; Quartel, Dick; Steen, Maarten W.A.; Wombacher, Andreas; Reichert, M.U.

2007-01-01

In this paper we propose a new approach for service-oriented enterprise application integration (EAI). Unlike current EAI solutions, which mainly focus on technological aspects, our approach allows business domain experts to get more involved in the integration process. First, we provide a technique

Integrating IMS LD and IMS QTIv2 using CopperCore Service Integration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vogten, Hubert

2006-01-01

Vogten, H. (2006). Integrating IMS LD and IMS QTIv2 using CopperCore Service Integration. Presentation at International Workshop in Learning Networks for Lifelong Competence Development. March, 30-31, 2006. Sofia, Bulgaria: TENCompetence Conference. Retrieved June 30th, 2006, from

An Esprit Project: A Local Integrated Optical Network

Science.gov (United States)

Rey, J.-C.; Luvison, A.; Maaloe, J.; Toft, Fl.

1986-10-01

The paper describes a fibreoptical wideband local area network, (LION) which is being developed under the European ESPRIT (European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology) programme. The consortium consists of Thomson-TITN, CSELT and NKT Elektronik. The network will carry both real-time voice and compressed video traffic, and it will also offer a Transport Service for packet-switched data transmission. The network is composed by a number of subnets operating on 140 Mbit/s and an interconnecting backbone network operating on 565 Mbit/s. In large organisations the total network may span more than 10 miles and it can handle more than 10,000 users. The network will have gateways to ISDN and other public services, and interfaces to host computers and other common resources.

Peculiarities of designing Holistic Electronic Government Services Integration Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tadas Limba

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Purpos– the aim ok this paper is to develop a Holistic Electronic Government Services Integration Model which could ensure the efficient integration of electronic government services in the local self-government level.Methodolog– the following analyses have been carried out in thirkpaper: theoretical-systematic; normative and conceptual comparative analysis of the researcha A method of modeling has also been applied.Finding– the scientific work analyzes the improvement opportunities of the models of electronic government services and their application alternatives in Lithuanian municipalities. The newly developed model of electronic government services that has been designed basng on the principle of integrating online expert consultation is primarily targeted at improvement of inside processes’ changes of an organization. Practicing the application of that model in the local self-government level starting with improvement of inside processes of an organization should help adapt more accurately and efficiently to the changing needs of the society while providing electronic government services, thus establishing a higher public value.Practical implication– the practical novelty of work is reflected not only through the integration opportunities’ assessment of the principle of online expert consultation services into the theoretical models of electronic government services that have already been developed by the scientists, but also on the basis of this principle there has been created a “Holistic Electronic Government Services Integration Model” in accordance with “E-Diamond” model basis and its practical application realization with the design of “The project of implementing the principle of online expert consultation on the model of electronic government services” for the future investigations.Originalit– the systematic, comparative analysis of the models of electronic government services carried out in the scientific

Technology Epiphany and an Integrated Product and Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Satoru Goto

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This study aims at exploring how an integrated product and service contributes to achieving Innovation of Meaning (IoM or technology epiphany. Existing IoM studies have focused on intended meaning (as defined in new product development and ignored the received meaning that users reconstruct. The process by which a user assigns meaning to things can not only be static but also dynamic. This study focuses on integrated products and contexts offered by services and analyses the case of Japan’s largest manufacturer of ankle-foot orthoses. The results show that the service guides the users to reconstruct the meaning in dynamic cognitive processes and use the metaphors that contribute to the consistency between products and services.

Service-learning in nursing: Integrating student learning and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Service-learning in nursing: Integrating student learning and community-based service experience through reflective practice. ... the students' reflective journals, group project reports and a focus-group discussion as the primary data sources.

Evaluation of services of the integrative health clinic in Hong Kong.

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Joanne W Y; Chung, Louisa M Y; Kwok, Nedra W L; Wong, Thomas K S

2008-10-01

(i) To provide a profile of the clients who have used the Integrative Health Clinic's services, (ii) to determine the clients' extent of satisfaction with the services received and (iii) to assess whether integrative therapies can/should be recommended to other clinics. Based on the integration of various health paradigms and the use of health promotion strategies, our Integrative Health Clinic in Hong Kong provides a range of different therapies for integrated symptom management. The integrative therapies are derived from conventional, complementary and alternative medicine. Design. Postal survey, followed by routine data analysis. Hong Kong Chinese clients attending a residential community health clinic were surveyed about health status and satisfaction towards the services received. A total of 489 clients (30.8% were male and 69.2% female) were registered with the clinic during the study period. The mean age (SD) was 47.8 (15.4) years. The customer satisfaction survey found that traditional Chinese medicine consultation was the most frequently used modality of the Integrative Health Clinic, followed by pain management. Out of the 489 clients, those who attended the Integrative Health Clinic only once in the study period for an annual health assessment and those who died during the period were excluded from the survey, giving a total of 276 eligible clients. Out of the 276 clients, 52.5% (128) responded to the survey that asked them to evaluate their satisfaction with the services received at the clinic and the performance of the clinic's practitioners who interacted with them. For practitioner performance, the percentage of respondents who gave a rating of satisfaction was found to range between 86.3-64.3%, while the percentage of respondents who gave a rating of dissatisfaction ranged from 13.7-35.7%. Overall, the survey found that most aspects of the Integrative Health Clinic's services were rated as satisfactory. The overwhelming satisfaction of clients with

Supporting Theory Building in Integrated Services Research

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Mark; Atkinson, Mary; Downing, Dick

2008-01-01

This literature review was commissioned by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to draw together current and recent studies of integrated working, in order to build an overview of the theories and models of such working. The review is important for current work on evaluating the early impact of integrated children's services and…

The Integrated Complex of Marketing of Higher Education Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhehus Olena V.

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The article, on the basis of generalization of scientific views of foreign and domestic scientists, substantiates the integrated model of marketing of higher education products and services with consideration of their specificities. The obtained result is the «5Р + S» model, which includes the newly introduced poli-element «proposition», combining the interrelated and indivisible elements of «product», «people» and «process», as well as the traditional elements of the service marketing complex: «price», «place», «promotion», «physical evidence». The «social-marketing» element has been added to the integrated model on the basis of the high societal importance of educational services. Altogether, the proposed integrated model of the complex of marketing of higher education products and services is a symbiosis of commercial and non-commercial marketing, which will enhance social and economic efficiency of functioning of higher educational institution.

Public Service Integrity Perception: Case Study In Kutai Kartanegara Regency, Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dyah Mutiarin

2014-02-01

Full Text Available This paper was aimed to measure the integrity of public service at Kutai Kartanegara Regency, East Borneo Province, Indonesia. The public service integrity can be seen from many perspective such as how the citizens satisfied with the public services provided by the government, how the public perception on combating corruption, and how success the government providing minimum service standard to the public at large. This three forms of public service integrity was the main focuses of this research in Kutai Kartanegara regency. The phenomenon of public service in Kutai Kartanegara Regency shown out of the tracks and missing to convey the importance of public service values, characterized by uncertainty of charges, time, and procedures. The research used the quantitative methods by scoring 3 indexes, which are the Citizen Satisfaction Index, Corruption Perception Index, and Minimum Service Standard Index. This research used Non-probability Sampling method, also Judgment Sampling procedure, in the development and compilation of the citizens satisfaction index. There were 57 local government agencies that served as the samples. The results of this research were the public service integrity perceptions in Kutai Kartanegara regency was need to be improved on the quantity and quality of public service delivery, commitment and efforts to create a clean government, transparency and accountability especially on e-procurement and to implement minimum service standards in every government offices.

Elementary Education Pre-Service Teachers' Development of Mathematics Technology Integration Skills in a Technology Integration Course

Science.gov (United States)

Polly, Drew

2015-01-01

Preparing pre-service teachers to effectively integrate technology in the classroom requires rich experiences that deepen their knowledge of technology, pedagogy, and content and the intersection of these aspects. This study examined elementary education pre-service teachers' development of skills and knowledge in a technology integration course…

Employee health services integration: meeting the challenge. Successful program.

Science.gov (United States)

Lang, Y C

1998-02-01

1. The first step of a successful Employee Health Service integration is to have a plan supported by management. The plan must be presented to the employees prior to implementation in a "user friendly" manner. 2. Prior to computerization of employee health records, a record order system must be developed to prevent duplication and to enhance organization. 3. Consistency of services offered must be maintained. Each employee must have the opportunity to receive the same service. Complexity of services will determine the site of delivery. 4. Integration is a new and challenging development for the health care field. Flexibility and brainstorming are necessary in an attempt to meet both employee and employer needs.

MAPI: towards the integrated exploitation of bioinformatics Web Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramirez, Sergio; Karlsson, Johan; Trelles, Oswaldo

2011-10-27

Bioinformatics is commonly featured as a well assorted list of available web resources. Although diversity of services is positive in general, the proliferation of tools, their dispersion and heterogeneity complicate the integrated exploitation of such data processing capacity. To facilitate the construction of software clients and make integrated use of this variety of tools, we present a modular programmatic application interface (MAPI) that provides the necessary functionality for uniform representation of Web Services metadata descriptors including their management and invocation protocols of the services which they represent. This document describes the main functionality of the framework and how it can be used to facilitate the deployment of new software under a unified structure of bioinformatics Web Services. A notable feature of MAPI is the modular organization of the functionality into different modules associated with specific tasks. This means that only the modules needed for the client have to be installed, and that the module functionality can be extended without the need for re-writing the software client. The potential utility and versatility of the software library has been demonstrated by the implementation of several currently available clients that cover different aspects of integrated data processing, ranging from service discovery to service invocation with advanced features such as workflows composition and asynchronous services calls to multiple types of Web Services including those registered in repositories (e.g. GRID-based, SOAP, BioMOBY, R-bioconductor, and others).

Autonomous Preference-Aware Information Services Integration for High Response in Integrated Faded Information Field Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Xiaodong; Mori, Kinji

The market and users' requirements have been rapidly changing and diversified. Under these heterogeneous and dynamic situations, not only the system structure itself, but also the accessible information services would be changed constantly. To cope with the continuously changing conditions of service provision and utilization, Faded Information Field (FIF) has been proposed, which is a agent-based distributed information service system architecture. In the case of a mono-service request, the system is designed to improve users' access time and preserve load balancing through the information structure. However, with interdependent requests of multi-service increasing, adaptability and timeliness have to be assured by the system. In this paper, the relationship that exists among the correlated services and the users' preferences for separate and integrated services is clarified. Based on these factors, the autonomous preference-aware information services integration technology to provide one-stop service for users multi-service requests is proposed. As compared to the conventional system, we show that proposed technology is able to reduce the total access time.

75 FR 20388 - International Business Machines Corporation, Global Technology Services Business Unit, Integrated...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-19

... Machines Corporation, Global Technology Services Business Unit, Integrated Technology Services, Cost and... Technology Services Business Unit, Integrated Technology Services, Cost and Expense Team working from various... Technology Services Business Unit. The company reports that workers leased from Datrose, Inc., were employed...

Designing interaction behaviour in service-oriented enterprise application integration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dirgahayu, T.; Quartel, Dick; van Sinderen, Marten J.

In this paper we present an approach for designing interaction behaviour in service-oriented enterprise application integration. The approach enables business analysts to actively participate in the design of an integration solution. In this way, we expect that the solution meets its integration

Egypt : Operational Framework for Integrated Rural Sanitation Service Delivery

OpenAIRE

World Bank

2005-01-01

The Framework presented in this report links - for the first time in the Egyptian context - access to investment in rural sanitation services to quantifiable water quality (and health) improvements, in a given hydrologic basin. The Framework provides an integrated, institutional structure of relevant Government agencies and of serviced communities, which is built on integrated water resources management (IWRM) principles: treating water as a holistic resource, management at the lowest appropr...

Reference framework for integrating web resources as e-learning services in .LRN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabinton Sotelo Gómez

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The learning management platforms (LMS as Dot LRN (.LRN have been widely disseminated and used as a teaching tool. However, despite its great potential, most of these platforms do not allow easy integration of common services on the Web. Integration of external resources in LMS is critical to extend the quantity and quality of educational services LMS. This article presents a set of criteria and architectural guidelines for the integration of Web resources for e-learning in the LRN platform. To this end, three steps are performed: first; the possible integration technologies to be used are described, second; the Web resources that provide educational services and can be integrated into LMS platforms are analyzed, finally; some architectural aspects of the relevant platform are identified for integration. The main contributions of this paper are: a characterization of Web resources and educational services available today on the Web; and the definition of criteria and guidelines for the integration of Web resources to .LRN.

An integrated service excellence model for military test and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The purpose of this article is to introduce an Integrated Service Excellence Model (ISEM) for empowering the leadership core of the capital-intensive military test and evaluation facilities to provide strategic military test and evaluation services and to continuously improve service excellence by ensuring that all activities ...

Technology Integration Coursework and Finding Meaning in Pre-Service Teachers' Reflective Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Kimmons, Royce; Miller, Brant G.; Amador, Julie; Desjardins, Christopher David; Hall, Cassidy

2015-01-01

This study seeks to inform teacher preparation programs regarding technology integration by understanding (1) relationships between tasks with specific technologies and pre-service teachers' critical thinking about technology integration and (2) relationships between how pre-service teachers are critically thinking about technology integration and…

Service-provider and utility task-leadership integration. Paper D

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bagshaw, S.; Van Tassell, D.

2011-01-01

As nuclear power utilities strive to stream-line their organizations, while improving outage and refurbishment project performance, the necessity for effective relationships and interaction between utility and service-providers becomes paramount. Successful integration of Service-Provider into the Utility's environment is achievable and has been demonstrated. Early and extensive engagement in front-end planning, single-point-of-continuity, and the use of integrated execution teams, are some of the critical elements for ensuring success. The paper discusses Task-Leadership Integration at the three levels of; utility executive level 'need-statement'; a 'why is this important' discussion; and as a 'thoughtful tutorial' on its features and practice. (author)

Third Intensive Balkan Telemedicine and e-Health Seminar

Science.gov (United States)

2009-03-01

and Cultural Affairs HD High Definition ISDN Integrates Services Digital Network IStTeH International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth IT...Lievens1,2, Marlina Jordanova, MD, PhD3,4 1International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth , Switzerland;2Med-e-Tel, Grimbergen, Belgium; 3Med-e-Tel...Approach F. Lievens 1,2,3, M. Jordanova 4,5 1 Board Member and Secretary, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), Switzerland 2

Non-communicable diseases and HIV care and treatment: models of integrated service delivery.

Science.gov (United States)

Duffy, Malia; Ojikutu, Bisola; Andrian, Soa; Sohng, Elaine; Minior, Thomas; Hirschhorn, Lisa R

2017-08-01

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) are a growing cause of morbidity in low-income countries including in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Integration of NCD and HIV services can build upon experience with chronic care models from HIV programmes. We describe models of NCD and HIV integration, challenges and lessons learned. A literature review of published articles on integrated NCD and HIV programs in low-income countries and key informant interviews were conducted with leaders of identified integrated NCD and HIV programs. Information was synthesised to identify models of NCD and HIV service delivery integration. Three models of integration were identified as follows: NCD services integrated into centres originally providing HIV care; HIV care integrated into primary health care (PHC) already offering NCD services; and simultaneous introduction of integrated HIV and NCD services. Major challenges identified included NCD supply chain, human resources, referral systems, patient education, stigma, patient records and monitoring and evaluation. The range of HIV and NCD services varied widely within and across models. Regardless of model of integration, leveraging experience from HIV care models and adapting existing systems and tools is a feasible method to provide efficient care and treatment for the growing numbers of patients with NCDs. Operational research should be conducted to further study how successful models of HIV and NCD integration can be expanded in scope and scaled-up by managers and policymakers seeking to address all the chronic care needs of their patients. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Semantic service integration for smart grids

CERN Document Server

Rohjans, S

2012-01-01

The scope of the research presented includes semantic-based integration of data services in smart grids achieved through following the proposed (S²)In-approach developed corresponding to design science guidelines. This approach identifies standards and specifications, which are integrated in order to build the basis for the (S²)In-architecture. A process model is introduced in the beginning, which serves as framework for developing the target architecture. The first step of the process stipulates to define requirements for smart grid ICT-architectures being derived from established studies and

CopperCore Service Integration, Integrating IMS Learning Design and IMS Question and Test Interoperability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vogten, Hubert; Martens, Harrie; Nadolski, Rob; Tattersall, Colin; Van Rosmalen, Peter; Koper, Rob

2006-01-01

Vogten, H., Martens, H., Nadolski, R., Tattersall, C., Rosmalen, van, P., Koper, R., (2006). CopperCore Service Integration, Integrating IMS Learning Design and IMS Question and Test Interoperability. Proceedings of the 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (pp.

[Coordination between pharmaceutical services for integrated pharmacotherapy: the case of Catalonia].

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Karen Sarmento; Goldbaum, Moisés; Guayta-Escolies, Rafel; Modamio, Pilar; Mariño, Eduardo Luis; Tolsá, José Luis Segú

2017-08-01

Pharmaceutical policies have been considered strategies to contribute to the guarantee of care coordination and clinical integration. This study sought to describe the pharmaceutical services developed at different levels of care in the health network in Catalonia, as well as to identify and analyze the mechanisms and instruments that act as facilitators and/or barriers to the coordination of pharmacotherapy. This is a descriptive study of 12 cases of hospital pharmacy services, primary care and community pharmacies. Advances related to the perception, formalization and clinical and assistance coordination of the pharmaceutical services were identified. However, weaknesses and potential improvements in coordination were observed. The conclusion drawn was that the different tools and instruments implemented appear to facilitate a greater possibility of integration between pharmaceutical services and the latter with the health services network to contribute to integrated pharmacotherapy.

Integrating Business Communication Instruction and Career Services: Activities and Assessment Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Crews, Moody E.; Hemby, K. Virginia

2009-01-01

This paper is an extension of an earlier JARBI article, "Integrating University and College Career Services Programs into the Business Communication Curriculum" (Hemby & Crews, 2005). The original article provided business communication instructors with ideas for integrating career services' programs into the business communication curriculum,…

Wire communication engineering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Son, Byeong Tae

1997-02-01

This book describes wire telecommunication engineering/ It is divided into eleven chapter, which deal with Introduction with development of telecommunication, voice and sound wave and communication network, Telegraphy with summary of telegraphy, code of telegraphy, communication speed, morse and telex, Telephone on structure, circuit and image telephone, Traffic on telecommunication traffic, transmission of line about theory, cable line and loaded cable, carrier communication with carrier telegraphy and carrier telephone, optical communication with types, structure, specialty, laser and equipment, DATA, Mobile telecommunication on summary, mobile telephone, radio paging and digital mobile telecommunication, ISDN with channel of ISDN, and service of ISDN, and design of telecommunication.

Building thematic and integrated services for solid Earth sciences: the EPOS integrated approach

Science.gov (United States)

Cocco, Massimo; Consortium, Epos

2016-04-01

EPOS has been designed with the vision of creating a pan-European infrastructure for solid Earth science to support a safe and sustainable society. In accordance with this scientific vision, the EPOS mission is to integrate the diverse and advanced European Research Infrastructures for solid Earth science relying on new e-science opportunities to monitor and unravel the dynamic and complex Earth System. EPOS will enable innovative multidisciplinary research for a better understanding of the Earth's physical and chemical processes that control earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ground instability and tsunami as well as the processes driving tectonics and Earth's surface dynamics. To accomplish its mission, EPOS is engaging different stakeholders, not limited to scientists, to allow the Earth sciences to open new horizons in our understanding of the planet. EPOS also aims at contributing to prepare society for geo-hazards and to responsibly manage the exploitation of geo-resources. Through integration of data, models and facilities, EPOS will allow the Earth science community to make a step change in developing new concepts and tools for key answers to scientific and socio-economic questions concerning geo-hazards and geo-resources as well as Earth sciences applications to the environment and human welfare. A long-term integration plan is necessary to accomplish the EPOS mission. EPOS is presently in its implementation phase further extending its pan-European dimension. The EPOS Implementation Phase builds on the achievements of the successful EPOS Preparatory Phase project and consists of two key activities: the legal establishment of the EPOS-ERIC and the EPOS IP project. The EPOS implementation phase will last from 2015 to 2019. Key objectives of the project are: implementing Thematic Core Services (TCS), the domain-specific service hubs for coordinating and harmonizing national resources/plans with the European dimension of EPOS; building the Integrated Core

A novel virtual hub approach for multisource downstream service integration

Science.gov (United States)

Previtali, Mattia; Cuca, Branka; Barazzetti, Luigi

2016-08-01

A large development of downstream services is expected to be stimulated starting from earth observations (EO) datasets acquired by Copernicus satellites. An important challenge connected with the availability of downstream services is the possibility for their integration in order to create innovative applications with added values for users of different categories level. At the moment, the world of geo-information (GI) is extremely heterogeneous in terms of standards and formats used, thus preventing a facilitated access and integration of downstream services. Indeed, different users and data providers have also different requirements in terms of communication protocols and technology advancement. In recent years, many important programs and initiatives have tried to address this issue even on trans-regional and international level (e.g. INSPIRE Directive, GEOSS, Eye on Earth and SEIS). However, a lack of interoperability between systems and services still exists. In order to facilitate the interaction between different downstream services, a new architectural approach (developed within the European project ENERGIC OD) is proposed in this paper. The brokering-oriented architecture introduces a new mediation layer (the Virtual Hub) which works as an intermediary to bridge the gaps linked to interoperability issues. This intermediation layer de-couples the server and the client allowing a facilitated access to multiple downstream services and also Open Data provided by national and local SDIs. In particular, in this paper an application is presented integrating four services on the topic of agriculture: (i) the service given by Space4Agri (providing services based on MODIS and Landsat data); (ii) Gicarus Lab (providing sample services based on Landsat datasets) and (iii) FRESHMON (providing sample services for water quality) and services from a several regional SDIs.

Flexible Web services integration: a novel personalised social approach

Science.gov (United States)

Metrouh, Abdelmalek; Mokhati, Farid

2018-05-01

Dynamic composition or integration remains one of the key objectives of Web services technology. This paper aims to propose an innovative approach of dynamic Web services composition based on functional and non-functional attributes and individual preferences. In this approach, social networks of Web services are used to maintain interactions between Web services in order to select and compose Web services that are more tightly related to user's preferences. We use the concept of Web services community in a social network of Web services to reduce considerably their search space. These communities are created by the direct involvement of Web services providers.

Service-provider and utility task-leadership integration. Paper D

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bagshaw, S.; Van Tassell, D. [AP Services, Inc., Freeport, PA (United States)

2011-07-01

As nuclear power utilities strive to stream-line their organizations, while improving outage and refurbishment project performance, the necessity for effective relationships and interaction between utility and service-providers becomes paramount. Successful integration of Service-Provider into the Utility's environment is achievable and has been demonstrated. Early and extensive engagement in front-end planning, single-point-of-continuity, and the use of integrated execution teams, are some of the critical elements for ensuring success. The paper discusses Task-Leadership Integration at the three levels of; utility executive level 'need-statement'; a 'why is this important' discussion; and as a 'thoughtful tutorial' on its features and practice. (author)

Integrating mental health services: the Finnish experience

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ville Lehtinen

2001-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to give a short description of the most important developments of mental health services in Finland during the 1990s, examine their influences on the organisation and provision of services, and describe shortly some national efforts to handle the new situation. The Finnish mental health service system experienced profound changes in the beginning of the 1990s. These included the integration of mental health services, being earlier under own separate administration, with other specialised health services, decentralisation of the financing of health services, and de-institutionalisation of the services. The same time Finland underwent the deepest economic recession in Western Europe, which resulted in cut-offs especially in the mental health budgets. Conducting extensive national research and development programmes in the field of mental health has been one typically Finnish way of supporting the mental health service development. The first of these national programmes was the Schizophrenia Project 1981–97, whose main aims were to decrease the incidence of new long-term patients and the prevalence of old long-stay patients by developing an integrated treatment model. The Suicide Prevention Project 1986–96 aimed at raising awareness of this special problem and decreasing by 20% the proportionally high suicide rate in Finland. The National Depression Programme 1994–98 focused at this clearly increasing public health concern by several research and development project targeted both to the general population and specifically to children, primary care and specialised services. The latest, still on-going Meaningful Life Programme 1998–2003 which main aim is, by multi-sectoral co-operation, to improve the quality of life for people suffering from or living with the threat of mental disorders. Furthermore, the government launched in 1999 a new Goal and Action Programme for Social Welfare and Health Care 2000–2003, in

Organizational capacity for service integration in community-based addiction health services.

Science.gov (United States)

Guerrero, Erick G; Aarons, Gregory A; Palinkas, Lawrence A

2014-04-01

We examined factors associated with readiness to coordinate mental health, public health, and HIV testing among community-based addiction health services programs. We analyzed client and program data collected in 2011 from publicly funded addiction health services treatment programs in Los Angeles County, California. We analyzed a sample of 14 379 clients nested in 104 programs by using logistic regressions examining odds of service coordination with mental health and public health providers. We conducted a separate analysis to examine the percentage of clients receiving HIV testing in each program. Motivational readiness and organizational climate for change were associated with higher odds of coordination with mental health and public health services. Programs with professional accreditation had higher odds of coordinating with mental health services, whereas programs receiving public funding and methadone and residential programs (compared with outpatient) had a higher percentage of clients receiving coordinated HIV testing. These findings provide an evidentiary base for the role of motivational readiness, organizational climate, and external regulation and funding in improving the capacity of addiction health services programs to develop integrated care.

Cost, cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of integrated family planning and HIV services.

Science.gov (United States)

Shade, Starley B; Kevany, Sebastian; Onono, Maricianah; Ochieng, George; Steinfeld, Rachel L; Grossman, Daniel; Newmann, Sara J; Blat, Cinthia; Bukusi, Elizabeth A; Cohen, Craig R

2013-10-01

To evaluate costs, cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of integration of family planning into HIV services. Integration of family planning services into HIV care and treatment clinics. A cluster-randomized trial. Twelve health facilities in Nyanza, Kenya were randomized to integrate family planning into HIV care and treatment; six health facilities were randomized to (nonintegrated) standard-of-care with separately delivered family planning and HIV services. We assessed costs, cost-efficiency (cost per additional use of more effective family planning), and cost-effectiveness (cost per pregnancy averted) associated with the first year of integration of family planning into HIV care. More effective family planning methods included oral and injectable contraceptives, subdermal implants, intrauterine device, and female and male sterilization. We collected cost data through interviews with study staff and review of financial records to determine costs of service integration. Integration of services was associated with an average marginal cost of $841 per site and $48 per female patient. Average overall and marginal costs of integration were associated with personnel costs [initial ($1003 vs. $872) and refresher ($498 vs. $330) training, mentoring ($1175 vs. $902) and supervision ($1694 vs. $1636)], with fewer resources required for other fixed ($18 vs. $0) and recurring expenses ($471 vs. $287). Integration was associated with a marginal cost of $65 for each additional use of more effective family planning and $1368 for each pregnancy averted. Integration of family planning and HIV services is feasible, inexpensive to implement, and cost-efficient in the Kenyan setting, and thus supports current Kenyan integration policy.

Intelligence, integration & industrialisation for the building services technologies of the future

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marsh, Rob

2007-01-01

The hypothesis of this paper is that the construction sector's industrial transformation needs to focus on integrating building services technologies in the buildings of the future. This can be achieved by analysing developments in intelligent building services, exploring design strategies...... for effectively integrating building services, and by developing new industrialised solutions for building services technologies. This paper is based on current Danish research and practice, and it is based on linking research knowledge on building services to knowledge on user needs, building design and new...

The influence of nursing care integration services on nurses' work satisfaction and quality of nursing care.

Science.gov (United States)

Ryu, Jeong-Im; Kim, Kisook

2018-06-20

To investigate differences in work satisfaction and quality of nursing services between nurses from the nursing care integration service and general nursing units in Korea. The nursing care integration service was recently introduced in Korea to improve patient health outcomes through the provision of high quality nursing services and to relieve the caregiving burden of patients' families. In this cross-sectional study, data were collected from a convenience sample of 116 and 156 nurses working in nursing care integration service and general units, respectively. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t tests and one-way analysis of variance. Regarding work satisfaction, nursing care integration service nurses scored higher than general unit nurses on professional status, autonomy and task requirements, but the overall scores showed no significant differences. Scores on overall quality of nursing services, responsiveness and assurance were higher for nursing care integration service nurses than for general unit nurses. Nursing care integration service nurses scored higher than general unit nurses on some aspects of work satisfaction and quality of nursing services. Further studies with larger sample sizes will contribute to improving the quality of nursing care integration service units. These findings can help to establish strategies for the implementation and efficient operation of the nursing care integration service system, for the improvement of the quality of nursing services, and for successfully implementing and expanding nursing care integration service services in other countries. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

How Does PCSI Help Deliver Integrated Services?

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

This podcast describes how PCSI strengthens collaborative work across disease areas and integrates services that are provided by related programs, especially prevention activities related to HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and tuberculosis (TB) at the client level.

Integrating reproductive and child health and HIV services in Tanzania

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Integrating reproductive and child health and HIV services in Tanzania: Implication to policy, systems and services. ... Experts around the world recognize the central role of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in preventing HIV infection. Evidence suggests that improving access to contraception for women to ...

Integration of leprosy services into the General Health Service in Sri Lanka: overcoming challenges to implementation in a remote district.

Science.gov (United States)

Wijesinghe, Thushanthi S; Wijesinghe, Pushpa Ranjan

2013-01-01

Sri Lanka took a policy decision to integrate leprosy services into the general health services (GHS) in 1999. This paper aims to summarize the emergence of new, specific challenges and how they were overcome during the integration of leprosy services to the GHS in a remote, leprosy endemic district in Sri Lanka. In this article, the regional epidemiologist as the team leader describes the principles used for transition to an effective integrated model of leprosy services from a centralized leprosy control model in the district. In addition, rationale for integration is viewed from the epidemiological and operational perspectives. National and district leprosy epidemiological data from secondary sources are also reviewed for corroborating the effectiveness of integration. Challenges surfaced were mainly related to the transfer of ownership of the programme, selection of appropriate service providing institutions easily accessible to clients, sustainability of leprosy services at the GHS, ensuring participation of all stakeholders in capacity building programmes and co-ordination of patient care in the absence of a dermatologist in the district. An empowered district team leader with specified roles and responsibilities, his sound technical and managerial know how and ability to translate 'team work' concept to practice were found to be essential for successful implementation of integration. Decision-making powers at the district level and flexibility to introduce new, area-specific changes to the centrally prepared core activities of integration were also vital to overcome locally surfaced challenges.

From NHS Choices to the integrated customer service platform.

Science.gov (United States)

Gann, Bob; Grant, Maria J

2013-03-01

In 2013 the NHS Commissioning Board launches its new integrated customer service platform. The new service utilises the full range of channels (web, telephone, apps etc) to provide access to information to support transparency, participation and transactions. Digital health services have proven benefits in informed choice, shared decision making and patient participation. © 2013 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2013 Health Libraries Group.

Integrating IMS Learning Design and IMS Question and Test Interoperability using CopperCore Service Integration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vogten, Hubert; Martens, Harrie; Nadolski, Rob; Tattersall, Colin; Van Rosmalen, Peter; Koper, Rob

2006-01-01

Please, cite this publication as: Vogten, H., Martens, H., Nadolski, R., Tattersall, C., van Rosmalen, P., & Koper, R. (2006). Integrating IMS Learning Design and IMS Question and Test Interoperability using CopperCore Service Integration. Proceedings of International Workshop in Learning Networks

Integration of TB and ART services fails to improve TB treatment ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The median CD4+ count of HIV-positive patients was 152 cells/μl (interquartile range (IQR) 71 - 277) for integrated facilities and 148 cells/μl (IQR 67 - 260) for single-service facilities. There was no statistical difference in the TB treatment outcome profile between integrated and single-service facilities for all TB patients (p=0.

Integrated modelling of ecosystem services and energy systems research

Science.gov (United States)

Agarwala, Matthew; Lovett, Andrew; Bateman, Ian; Day, Brett; Agnolucci, Paolo; Ziv, Guy

2016-04-01

The UK Government is formally committed to reducing carbon emissions and protecting and improving natural capital and the environment. However, actually delivering on these objectives requires an integrated approach to addressing two parallel challenges: de-carbonising future energy system pathways; and safeguarding natural capital to ensure the continued flow of ecosystem services. Although both emphasise benefiting from natural resources, efforts to connect natural capital and energy systems research have been limited, meaning opportunities to improve management of natural resources and meet society's energy needs could be missed. The ecosystem services paradigm provides a consistent conceptual framework that applies in multiple disciplines across the natural and economic sciences, and facilitates collaboration between them. At the forefront of the field, integrated ecosystem service - economy models have guided public- and private-sector decision making at all levels. Models vary in sophistication from simple spreadsheet tools to complex software packages integrating biophysical, GIS and economic models and draw upon many fields, including ecology, hydrology, geography, systems theory, economics and the social sciences. They also differ in their ability to value changes in natural capital and ecosystem services at various spatial and temporal scales. Despite these differences, current models share a common feature: their treatment of energy systems is superficial at best. In contrast, energy systems research has no widely adopted, unifying conceptual framework that organises thinking about key system components and interactions. Instead, the literature is organised around modelling approaches, including life cycle analyses, econometric investigations, linear programming and computable general equilibrium models. However, some consistencies do emerge. First, often contain a linear set of steps, from exploration to resource supply, fuel processing, conversion

Successful outsourcing: improving quality of life through integrated support services.

Science.gov (United States)

Bates, Jason; Sharratt, Martin; King, John

2014-01-01

This article examines the way that non-clinical support services are provided in healthcare settings through outsourcing partnerships. The integrated support services model and benefits to patient experience and safety as well as organizational efficiency and effectiveness are explored through an examination of services at a busy urban community hospital.

Integrated services as the key to the optimisation of refueling outages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ortega, Juan; Gonzalez, Roberto; Gutierrez, Jose E.

2010-01-01

Refueling outages at nuclear power plants are subject to demanding improvement criteria in each and every one of the activities scheduled. The management of activities on the refueling floor, including the phases of opening and closing of the reactor vessel and associated tasks relating to the reactor internals, the unloading, loading and management of the irradiated fuel and activities requested for the in-service inspection of essential primary circuit components, are interventions that have an impact on the refueling critical path and whose overall integration allows for significant optimization of the entire management of this fundamental refueling activity. For several years now, ENUSA, as the company specializing in irradiated fuel services, TECNATOM as the company responsible for the in-service inspection of critical primary side components and Westinghouse as the technology provider and specialist in the supply of plant support services, have together formed a solid working team offering this integrated refueling service to the Spanish plants. Today, the new and heightened demands regarding the training and specialization of the personnel participating in refueling outages, the need to consider contingencies in the activities scheduled and the objectives relating to the ALARA concept and safe operations require that this service include new activities providing synergies and leading to higher levels of commitment to excellence. This paper will present the service model developed, the most significant activities integrated in the service and the advantages and milestones achieved and reached during this period, compared to the conventional distributed functions model. Likewise, an analysis will be made of the new challenges that are being addressed, with a view to bringing about a more global integration. (authors)

Colleges' Experiences: Integrating Support Services for Military Veterans

Science.gov (United States)

Karp, Melinda Mechur; Klempin, Serena

2017-01-01

To improve the educational experiences and outcomes of student veterans, the Kisco Foundation developed the Kohlberg Prize in 2015. Two cohorts of colleges were awarded competitive grants to enhance their veterans services. This piece examines the process of creating integrated services for student veterans through the institutionalization of…

The tsunami service bus, an integration platform for heterogeneous sensor systems

Science.gov (United States)

Haener, R.; Waechter, J.; Kriegel, U.; Fleischer, J.; Mueller, S.

2009-04-01

1. INTRODUCTION Early warning systems are long living and evolving: New sensor-systems and -types may be developed and deployed, sensors will be replaced or redeployed on other locations and the functionality of analyzing software will be improved. To ensure a continuous operability of those systems their architecture must be evolution-enabled. From a computer science point of view an evolution-enabled architecture must fulfill following criteria: • Encapsulation of and functionality on data in standardized services. Access to proprietary sensor data is only possible via these services. • Loose coupling of system constituents which easily can be achieved by implementing standardized interfaces. • Location transparency of services what means that services can be provided everywhere. • Separation of concerns that means breaking a system into distinct features which overlap in functionality as little as possible. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as e. g. realized in the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) and the advantages of functional integration on the basis of services described below adopt these criteria best. 2. SENSOR INTEGRATION Integration of data from (distributed) data sources is just a standard task in computer science. From few well known solution patterns, taking into account performance and security requirements of early warning systems only functional integration should be considered. Precondition for this is that systems are realized compliant to SOA patterns. Functionality is realized in form of dedicated components communicating via a service infrastructure. These components provide their functionality in form of services via standardized and published interfaces which could be used to access data maintained in - and functionality provided by dedicated components. Functional integration replaces the tight coupling at data level by a dependency on loosely coupled services. If the interfaces of the service providing

Integrating Expert Knowledge into Mapping Ecosystem Services Trade-offs for Sustainable Forest Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Mountain ecosystems are highly sensitive to global change. In fact, the continued capacity of mountain regions to provide goods and services to society is threatened by the impact of environmental changes on ecosystems. Although mapping ecosystem services values is known to support sustainable resource management, the integration of spatially explicit local expert knowledge on ecosystem dynamics and social responses to global changes has not yet been integrated in the modeling process. This contribution demonstrates the importance of integrating local knowledge into the spatially explicit valuation of ecosystem services. Knowledge acquired by expert surveys flows into a GIS-based Bayesian Network for valuing forest ecosystem services under a land-use and a climate change scenario in a case study in the Swiss Alps. Results show that including expert knowledge in ecosystem services mapping not only reduces uncertainties considerably, but also has an important effect on the ecosystem services values. Particularly the iterative process between integrating expert knowledge into the modeling process and mapping ecosystem services guarantees a continuous improvement of ecosystem services values maps while opening a new way for mutual learning between scientists and stakeholders which might support adaptive resource management.

Current state of seagrass ecosystem services: Research and policy integration

KAUST Repository

Ruiz-Frau, A.

2017-10-12

Seagrasses contribute to the maintenance of human wellbeing. However certain aspects of their role as ecosystem service (ES) providers remain understudied. Here, we synthesise the state of seagrass ES (SGES) research and policy implications. Additionally, we recommend ways in which SGES research can be integrated in to policy design, by drawing lessons from the case of Blue Carbon (BC). SGES research suffers from three main biases: a geographical bias, SGES has been restricted to chartered seagrass areas; a type of service research bias, provisioning and regulating services have received extensive attention while cultural services remain understudied; a type of discipline bias, the ecological aspects of SGES have been well documented while economic and social aspects remain in comparison understudied. These are particularly important, as an understanding of the social and economic considerations of the provision of ES is fundamental to facilitate its integration into policy frameworks. Lessons drawn from the operationalization process of BC show the reoccurrence of certain aspects that have enabled the integration of BC into policy. These aspects are grouped under 4 different categories. From the analysis of these elements we draw lessons that could facilitate the operationalization of other ecosystem services and their incorporation into management policy frameworks.

Delivering low-bandwidth telemedicine services over hybrid networks in developing countries.

Science.gov (United States)

Amble, R; Comparini, A; Kumar, K R; Dahlgren, R; Lurie, Y M

2004-01-01

The results of medical specialist consultations sampled from several rural clinics located throughout India indicate that remote expert opinions can improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis. Central to this presentation is a description of how real-time and store & forward telemedicine services can be provided to rural populations over hybrid networks made up of ISDN, POTS, VSAT, cellular, and Cable Internet connections. A model for meeting the specialized medical needs of developing countries will be highlighted. Descriptions, examples, and benefits of how Browser-based client-server architectures are being used in over 20 locations in India and Mexico for triaging real-time vital signs, DICOM images, audio & video, and clinical text information will be highlighted.

DEEPENING SERVICES MARKET INTEGRATION - A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacques Pelkmans

2007-12-01

Full Text Available The greatest asset of the European Union is undoubtedly its internal market. However, the internal market is not completed: it suffers from a giant hole with respect to many services. The present contribution addresses the status of services in the internal market and, in particular, the horizontal liberalisation (or, the lack of it of services outside the two large sectors which greatly deepened market integration (6 modes of transport and 3 financial services markets. Because a horizontal perspective on services in the EU is still little understood, it is briefly summarized what services really are and how their regulatory logic in the internal market can help to classify them. The (strong economic case for deepening services market integration is built on recent empirical economic analysis as well as simulation. This is followed by a discussion, with flowchart, of the Bolkestein draft directive, against the backdrop of the frustrating lack of, or at best, selective progress on services for decades. A survey of economic impact studies of the draft directive is provided, too, underpinning its importance even when the infamous origin principle is taken out. Some light is subsequently shed on the tumultuous politicisation of the services debate. Emphasis is laid on the socio-economic context (which, it is submitted, sharpened the discussion at times into polarisation and a series of other factors such as the diversity of the national regulatory frameworks of services and the labour employed, the complexity of the draft directive, the potentially radical nature of the origin principle (especially for those not aware of the case law of the ECJ, the dominant role of the EP and the opportunism of leading national politicians. Finally, directive 2006/123 –meanwhile in force – is explained and briefly assessed. Apart from the conspicuous manifestation of 'Angst' in drafting the directive, the (de merits are set out. The conclusion is that a badly

Adopting De Novo Programming Approach on IC Design Service Firms Resources Integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James K. C. Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The semiconductor industry has very important position in computer industry, ICT field, and new electronic technology developing. The IC design service is one of key factor of semiconductor industry development. There are more than 365 IC design service firms have been established around Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan. Building an efficient planning model for IC design service firm resources integrating is very interest issue. This study aims to construct a planning model for IC design service firm implementation resources integration. This study uses the De Novo programming as an approach of criteria alternative to achieve optimal resource allocation on IC design firm. Results show the IC design service firm should conduct open innovation concept and utilizes design outsourcing obtains cost down and enhance IC design service business performance. This plan model of De Novo programming is not only for IC design service firm and also can apply to the other industrial implementation strategic alliance/integrating resource. This plan model is a universal model for the others industries field.

Ecosystem services and economic theory: integration for policy-relevant research.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Brendan; Turner, Kerry; Zylstra, Matthew; Brouwer, Roy; de Groot, Rudolf; Farber, Stephen; Ferraro, Paul; Green, Rhys; Hadley, David; Harlow, Julian; Jefferiss, Paul; Kirkby, Chris; Morling, Paul; Mowatt, Shaun; Naidoo, Robin; Paavola, Jouni; Strassburg, Bernardo; Yu, Doug; Balmford, Andrew

2008-12-01

It has become essential in policy and decision-making circles to think about the economic benefits (in addition to moral and scientific motivations) humans derive from well-functioning ecosystems. The concept of ecosystem services has been developed to address this link between ecosystems and human welfare. Since policy decisions are often evaluated through cost-benefit assessments, an economic analysis can help make ecosystem service research operational. In this paper we provide some simple economic analyses to discuss key concepts involved in formalizing ecosystem service research. These include the distinction between services and benefits, understanding the importance of marginal ecosystem changes, formalizing the idea of a safe minimum standard for ecosystem service provision, and discussing how to capture the public benefits of ecosystem services. We discuss how the integration of economic concepts and ecosystem services can provide policy and decision makers with a fuller spectrum of information for making conservation-conversion trade-offs. We include the results from a survey of the literature and a questionnaire of researchers regarding how ecosystem service research can be integrated into the policy process. We feel this discussion of economic concepts will be a practical aid for ecosystem service research to become more immediately policy relevant.

Process-oriented integration and coordination of healthcare services across organizational boundaries.

Science.gov (United States)

Tello-Leal, Edgar; Chiotti, Omar; Villarreal, Pablo David

2012-12-01

The paper presents a methodology that follows a top-down approach based on a Model-Driven Architecture for integrating and coordinating healthcare services through cross-organizational processes to enable organizations providing high quality healthcare services and continuous process improvements. The methodology provides a modeling language that enables organizations conceptualizing an integration agreement, and identifying and designing cross-organizational process models. These models are used for the automatic generation of: the private view of processes each organization should perform to fulfill its role in cross-organizational processes, and Colored Petri Net specifications to implement these processes. A multi-agent system platform provides agents able to interpret Colored Petri-Nets to enable the communication between the Healthcare Information Systems for executing the cross-organizational processes. Clinical documents are defined using the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture. This methodology guarantees that important requirements for healthcare services integration and coordination are fulfilled: interoperability between heterogeneous Healthcare Information Systems; ability to cope with changes in cross-organizational processes; guarantee of alignment between the integrated healthcare service solution defined at the organizational level and the solution defined at technological level; and the distributed execution of cross-organizational processes keeping the organizations autonomy.

Customer Integration in Service Innovation: An Exploratory Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tim Straub

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Prominent industry projects, as well as an extensive literature suggest the importance of customer integration for companies’ innovation success. This appears to be especially true for service firms, which inherently build on customer interaction. Despite this appreciation of the approach, there are comparably few empirical analyses of the positive and negative effects of customer integration. In this exploratory study, we build on established customer role concepts to study the status quo of customer integration in industry, as well as reservations against the roles and negative experiences from customer integration projects. The study reveals a gap between reservations and actual negative experiences in losing know-how, as well as a positive effect of experience in customer integration on perceived benefits for the company.

Integrating Music Therapy Services and Speech-Language Therapy Services for Children with Severe Communication Impairments: A Co-Treatment Model

Science.gov (United States)

Geist, Kamile; McCarthy, John; Rodgers-Smith, Amy; Porter, Jessica

2008-01-01

Documenting how music therapy can be integrated with speech-language therapy services for children with communication delay is not evident in the literature. In this article, a collaborative model with procedures, experiences, and communication outcomes of integrating music therapy with the existing speech-language services is given. Using…

Is there a relationship between service integration and differentiation and patient outcomes?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robin P. Newhouse

2003-11-01

Full Text Available Objective: To examine the level of service integration within Maryland hospitals and service differentiation across the hospital system or network and its affect on heart failure patient clinical and economic outcomes. Data sources/Study setting: Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission Inpatient Data for 1997 and 1998 were used for secondary data analysis. Study design: Retrospective cross sectional. Independent variables were the level of service integration and differentiation created from the 1998 American Hospital Association Annual Survey based on the work of Bazzoli et al. [1]. The primary dependent variables were readmission, in-hospital mortality, length of stay and costs. Data collection/Extraction methods: Patients discharged from Maryland hospitals with a diagnosis that grouped to DRG 127 (heart failure were extracted. Multivariate linear and logistic models clustered by hospital were used to analyse results at the patient level. Principal findings: A higher likelihood of readmission was found as the level of Community Differentiation increased. Although costs were higher as Total Differentiation increased in 1998, these results were not validated by 1997 data. No significant relationship was found between integration of services and outcomes. Conclusions: Similar outcomes were achieved regardless of the level of service integration or differentiation. Community hospitals produce similar patient outcomes at the same cost for this diagnosis.

Open pre-schools at integrated health services - A program theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agneta Abrahamsson

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Family centres in Sweden are integrated services that reach all prospective parents and parents with children up to their sixth year, because of the co-location of the health service with the social service and the open pre-school. The personnel on the multi-professional site work together to meet the needs of the target group. The article explores a program theory focused on the open pre-schools at family centres.Method: A multi-case design is used and the sample consists of open pre-schools at six family centres. The hypothesis is based on previous research and evaluation data. It guides the data collection which is collected and analysed stepwise. Both parents and personnel are interviewed individually and in groups at each centre.Findings: The hypothesis was expanded to a program theory. The compliance of the professionals was the most significant element that explained why the open access service facilitated positive parenting. The professionals act in a compliant manner to meet the needs of the children and parents as well as in creating good conditions for social networking and learning amongst the parents. Conclusion: The compliance of the professionals in this program theory of open pre-schools at family centres can be a standard in integrated and open access services, whereas the organisation form can vary. The best way of increasing the number of integrative services is to support and encourage professionals that prefer to work in a compliant manner.

Open pre-schools at integrated health services - A program theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agneta Abrahamsson

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Family centres in Sweden are integrated services that reach all prospective parents and parents with children up to their sixth year, because of the co-location of the health service with the social service and the open pre-school. The personnel on the multi-professional site work together to meet the needs of the target group. The article explores a program theory focused on the open pre-schools at family centres. Method: A multi-case design is used and the sample consists of open pre-schools at six family centres. The hypothesis is based on previous research and evaluation data. It guides the data collection which is collected and analysed stepwise. Both parents and personnel are interviewed individually and in groups at each centre. Findings: The hypothesis was expanded to a program theory. The compliance of the professionals was the most significant element that explained why the open access service facilitated positive parenting. The professionals act in a compliant manner to meet the needs of the children and parents as well as in creating good conditions for social networking and learning amongst the parents. Conclusion: The compliance of the professionals in this program theory of open pre-schools at family centres can be a standard in integrated and open access services, whereas the organisation form can vary. The best way of increasing the number of integrative services is to support and encourage professionals that prefer to work in a compliant manner.

Integrating Into the Global Economy Through Services. The Case of Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agnes Ghibuțiu

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Services represent a most important and dynamic frontier of international trade and investment. The steady expansion of trade in services and its relative resilience in the recent crisis, coupled with its key role in global production networks and its increasing potential in attracting investment provides new opportunities for countries to grow their economies and integrate into the global economy. Drawing on insights from current literature and relying on balance of payments and trade in value-added statistics, this paper examines the main developments shaping Romania’s services trade over the post-crisis years. Its aim is to assess whether the country is grabbing the new opportunities arising from services globalization. It finds that following the dramatic crisis-induced decline in the value and performance of Romania’s services trade, the outlook is now radically improving as evidenced by the strongly rebounding services flows and net exports. Nonetheless, the country’s integration into the global economy through services flows continues to remain below its potential.

Integrating into the Global Economy through Services. The Case of Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

AGNES GHIBUŢIU

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Services represent a most important and dynamic frontier of international trade and investment. The steady expansion of trade in services and its relative resilience in the recent crisis, coupled with its key role in global production networks and its increasing potential in attracting investment provides new opportunities for countries to grow their economies and integrate into the global economy. Drawing on insights from current literature and relying on balance of payments and trade in value-added statistics, this paper examines the main developments shaping Romania’s services trade over the post-crisis years. Its aim is to assess whether the country is seizing the new opportunities arising from services globalization. It finds that following the dramatic crisis-induced decline in the value and performance of Romania’s services trade, the outlook is now radically improving as evidenced by strongly rebounding services flows and net exports. Nonetheless, the country’s integration into the global economy through services flows continues to remain below its potential.

Integrating Information Services in an Academic Setting: The Organizational and Technical Challenge.

Science.gov (United States)

Branin, Joseph J.; And Others

1993-01-01

Describes a project to integrate the support and delivery of information services to faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota from the planning phase to implementation of a new organizational entity. Topics addressed include technical and organizational integration, control and delivery of services, and networking and organizational fit.…

The fundamentals of integrating service in a post-licensure RN to BSN program.

Science.gov (United States)

Washington-Brown, Linda; Ritchie, Arlene

2014-01-01

Integrating service in a post-licensure registered nurse to bachelor of science in nursing (RN to BSN) program provides licensed registered nurse (RN) students the opportunity to learn, develop, and experience different cultures while serving the community and populations in need (McKinnon & Fitzpatrick, 2012). Service to the community, integrated with academic learning can be applied in a wide variety of settings, including schools, universities, and community faith-based organizations. Academic service-learning (ASL) can involve a group of students, a classroom, or an entire school. In the RN to BSN program, the authors use a student-directed service learning approach that integrates service-learning throughout the curriculum. RN students are introduced to service-learning at program orientation prior to the start of classes and receive reinforcement and active engagement throughout the curriculum. The students and volunteer agencies receive and give benefits from the services provided and the life lessons gained through mentorship, education, and hands-on experiences.

A systematic review of integrated working between care homes and health care services

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background In the UK there are almost three times as many beds in care homes as in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals. Care homes rely on primary health care for access to medical care and specialist services. Repeated policy documents and government reviews register concern about how health care works with independent providers, and the need to increase the equity, continuity and quality of medical care for care homes. Despite multiple initiatives, it is not known if some approaches to service delivery are more effective in promoting integrated working between the NHS and care homes. This study aims to evaluate the different integrated approaches to health care services supporting older people in care homes, and identify barriers and facilitators to integrated working. Methods A systematic review was conducted using Medline (PubMed), CINAHL, BNI, EMBASE, PsycInfo, DH Data, Kings Fund, Web of Science (WoS incl. SCI, SSCI, HCI) and the Cochrane Library incl. DARE. Studies were included if they evaluated the effectiveness of integrated working between primary health care professionals and care homes, or identified barriers and facilitators to integrated working. Studies were quality assessed; data was extracted on health, service use, cost and process related outcomes. A modified narrative synthesis approach was used to compare and contrast integration using the principles of framework analysis. Results Seventeen studies were included; 10 quantitative studies, two process evaluations, one mixed methods study and four qualitative. The majority were carried out in nursing homes. They were characterised by heterogeneity of topic, interventions, methodology and outcomes. Most quantitative studies reported limited effects of the intervention; there was insufficient information to evaluate cost. Facilitators to integrated working included care home managers' support and protected time for staff training. Studies with the potential for integrated working were longer in

Trends of International Trade in Services: Integration Opportunities for Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tetyana Bodnarchuk

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In the article the main trends and patterns of the development of international trade in services in the period of post-industrial development of the world economy are considered. Ukraine’s competitive positions on international service market are outlined. The main endogenous factors of enhancing the country’s integration to the world trade relations system in service sector are determined.

How integrated are neurology and palliative care services? Results of a multicentre mapping exercise.

Science.gov (United States)

van Vliet, Liesbeth M; Gao, Wei; DiFrancesco, Daniel; Crosby, Vincent; Wilcock, Andrew; Byrne, Anthony; Al-Chalabi, Ammar; Chaudhuri, K Ray; Evans, Catherine; Silber, Eli; Young, Carolyn; Malik, Farida; Quibell, Rachel; Higginson, Irene J

2016-05-10

Patients affected by progressive long-term neurological conditions might benefit from specialist palliative care involvement. However, little is known on how neurology and specialist palliative care services interact. This study aimed to map the current level of connections and integration between these services. The mapping exercise was conducted in eight centres with neurology and palliative care services in the United Kingdom. The data were provided by the respective neurology and specialist palliative care teams. Questions focused on: i) catchment and population served; ii) service provision and staffing; iii) integration and relationships. Centres varied in size of catchment areas (39-5,840 square miles) and population served (142,000-3,500,000). Neurology and specialist palliative care were often not co-terminus. Service provisions for neurology and specialist palliative care were also varied. For example, neurology services varied in the number and type of provided clinics and palliative care services in the settings they work in. Integration was most developed in Motor Neuron Disease (MND), e.g., joint meetings were often held, followed by Parkinsonism (made up of Parkinson's Disease (PD), Multiple-System Atrophy (MSA) and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), with integration being more developed for MSA and PSP) and least in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), e.g., most sites had no formal links. The number of neurology patients per annum receiving specialist palliative care reflected these differences in integration (range: 9-88 MND, 3-25 Parkinsonism, and 0-5 MS). This mapping exercise showed heterogeneity in service provision and integration between neurology and specialist palliative care services, which varied not only between sites but also between diseases. This highlights the need and opportunities for improved models of integration, which should be rigorously tested for effectiveness.

Customer Decision Making in Web Services with an Integrated P6 Model

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Zhaohao; Sun, Junqing; Meredith, Grant

Customer decision making (CDM) is an indispensable factor for web services. This article examines CDM in web services with a novel P6 model, which consists of the 6 Ps: privacy, perception, propensity, preference, personalization and promised experience. This model integrates the existing 6 P elements of marketing mix as the system environment of CDM in web services. The new integrated P6 model deals with the inner world of the customer and incorporates what the customer think during the DM process. The proposed approach will facilitate the research and development of web services and decision support systems.

Integrating ecosystem-service tradeoffs into land-use decisions

OpenAIRE

Goldstein, Joshua H.; Caldarone, Giorgio; Duarte, Thomas Kaeo; Ennaanay, Driss; Hannahs, Neil; Mendoza, Guillermo; Polasky, Stephen; Wolny, Stacie; Daily, Gretchen C.

2012-01-01

Recent high-profile efforts have called for integrating ecosystem-service values into important societal decisions, but there are few demonstrations of this approach in practice. We quantified ecosystem-service values to help the largest private landowner in Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, design a land-use development plan that balances multiple private and public values on its North Shore land holdings (Island of O’ahu) of ∼10,600 ha. We used the InVEST software tool to evaluate the environment...

What is Program Collaboration and Service Integration (PCSI)?

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

2009-12-07

This podcast provides a description of Program Collaboration and Service Integration (PCSI).  Created: 12/7/2009 by National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP).   Date Released: 12/7/2009.

Web services as applications' integration tool: QikProp case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Laoui, Abdel; Polyakov, Valery R

2011-07-15

Web services are a new technology that enables to integrate applications running on different platforms by using primarily XML to enable communication among different computers over the Internet. Large number of applications was designed as stand alone systems before the concept of Web services was introduced and it is a challenge to integrate them into larger computational networks. A generally applicable method of wrapping stand alone applications into Web services was developed and is described. To test the technology, it was applied to the QikProp for DOS (Windows). Although performance of the application did not change when it was delivered as a Web service, this form of deployment had offered several advantages like simplified and centralized maintenance, smaller number of licenses, and practically no training for the end user. Because by using the described approach almost any legacy application can be wrapped as a Web service, this form of delivery may be recommended as a global alternative to traditional deployment solutions. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Modeling and Analysis of Hybrid Cellular/WLAN Systems with Integrated Service-Based Vertical Handoff Schemes

Science.gov (United States)

Xia, Weiwei; Shen, Lianfeng

We propose two vertical handoff schemes for cellular network and wireless local area network (WLAN) integration: integrated service-based handoff (ISH) and integrated service-based handoff with queue capabilities (ISHQ). Compared with existing handoff schemes in integrated cellular/WLAN networks, the proposed schemes consider a more comprehensive set of system characteristics such as different features of voice and data services, dynamic information about the admitted calls, user mobility and vertical handoffs in two directions. The code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular network and IEEE 802.11e WLAN are taken into account in the proposed schemes. We model the integrated networks by using multi-dimensional Markov chains and the major performance measures are derived for voice and data services. The important system parameters such as thresholds to prioritize handoff voice calls and queue sizes are optimized. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed ISHQ scheme can maximize the utilization of overall bandwidth resources with the best quality of service (QoS) provisioning for voice and data services.

Preservice and In-Service Teachers' Perceptions toward Technology Benefits and Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Spaulding, Michael

2013-01-01

This study examined preservice teacher attitudes toward and expected technology integration practices as compared to in-service teachers' attitudes toward and actual (self-reported) practice of technology integration. The preservice teachers revealed a greater level of confidence in their ability to integrate technology and more positive beliefs…

Improving Acceptance, Integration, and Health Among LGBT Service Members

Science.gov (United States)

2016-10-01

Military, LGBT, health disparities, minority stress , social networks 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF ABSTRACT 18. NUMBER OF PAGES 19a...physical and mental health needs of this community. This project includes LGBT service members from all four services, Army, Air Force, Navy and...acceptance and integration of sexual minorities into traditional heterosexual work environments. Further, the findings will address possible health

Improving Acceptance, Integration, and Health Among LGBT Service Members

Science.gov (United States)

2017-10-01

through multiple rounds of internal testing and quality assurance procedures. Recruitment for the Phase II survey was initiated on August 25, 2017...Award Numbers: W81XWH-15-1-0701 Title: Improving Acceptance, Integration, and Health Among LGBT Service Members Principal Investigators...burden to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services , Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis

A service platform architecture design towards a light integration of heterogeneous systems in the wellbeing domain.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Yaojin; Ahtinen, Aino; Lahteenmaki, Jaakko; Nyman, Petri; Paajanen, Henrik; Peltoniemi, Teijo; Quiroz, Carlos

2007-01-01

System integration is one of the major challenges for building wellbeing or healthcare related information systems. In this paper, we are going to share our experiences on how to design a service platform called Nuadu service platform, for providing integrated services in occupational health promotion and health risk management through two heterogeneous systems. Our design aims for a light integration covering the layers, from data through service up to presentation, while maintaining the integrity of the underlying systems.

Home care: from adequate funding to integration of services.

Science.gov (United States)

Hébert, Réjean

2009-01-01

With the aging of the population, the healthcare system needs to shift from the actual hospital-centred system developed in the past century for dealing with acute diseases and a young population toward a home-centred system, more appropriate for serving older people with chronic diseases. Funding of home care should not only be significantly increased but also be managed differently. We propose the introduction of an autonomy support benefit (ASB) to cover costs related to disabilities, irrespective of living environment, and to set up a public universal autonomy insurance program that will cover the ASB. This insurance should be at least partly capitalized to provide for the aging of the population and to ensure intergenerational equity. Also, since the home is a much more complicated service-delivery environment than the hospital, these services must be coordinated and integrated. The Program of Research to Integrate the Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy (PRISMA) is a coordination-type model of integration that was implemented and evaluated in three areas (one urban and two rural) in and around Sherbrooke, Quebec. A four-year longitudinal quasi-experimental study with over 1,500 participants demonstrated its efficiency in improving system effectiveness at no extra cost.

Integration of antenatal care services with health programmes in low- and middle-income countries: systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

de Jongh, Thyra E; Gurol-Urganci, Ipek; Allen, Elizabeth; Zhu, Nina Jiayue; Atun, Rifat

2016-06-01

Antenatal care (ANC) presents a potentially valuable platform for integrated delivery of additional health services for pregnant women-services that are vital to reduce the persistently high rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, there is limited evidence on the impact of integrating health services with ANC to guide policy. This review assesses the impact of integration of postnatal and other health services with ANC on health services uptake and utilisation, health outcomes and user experience of care in LMICs. Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL Plus, POPLINE and Global Health were searched for studies that compared integrated models for delivery of postnatal and other health services with ANC to non-integrated models. Risk of bias of included studies was assessed using the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) criteria and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, depending on the study design. Due to high heterogeneity no meta-analysis could be conducted. Results are presented narratively. 12 studies were included in the review. Limited evidence, with moderate- to high-risk of bias, suggests that integrated service delivery results in improved uptake of essential health services for women, earlier initiation of treatment, and better health outcomes. Women also reported improved satisfaction with integrated services. The reported evidence is largely based on non-randomised studies with poor generalizability, and therefore offers very limited policy guidance. More rigorously conducted and geographically diverse studies are needed to better ascertain and quantify the health and economic benefits of integrating health services with ANC.

IRLT: Integrating Reputation and Local Trust for Trustworthy Service Recommendation in Service-Oriented Social Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhiquan; Ma, Jianfeng; Jiang, Zhongyuan; Miao, Yinbin; Gao, Cong

2016-01-01

With the prevalence of Social Networks (SNs) and services, plenty of trust models for Trustworthy Service Recommendation (TSR) in Service-oriented SNs (S-SNs) have been proposed. The reputation-based schemes usually do not contain user preferences and are vulnerable to unfair rating attacks. Meanwhile, the local trust-based schemes generally have low reliability or even fail to work when the trust path is too long or does not exist. Thus it is beneficial to integrate them for TSR in S-SNs. This work improves the state-of-the-art Combining Global and Local Trust (CGLT) scheme and proposes a novel Integrating Reputation and Local Trust (IRLT) model which mainly includes four modules, namely Service Recommendation Interface (SRI) module, Local Trust-based Trust Evaluation (LTTE) module, Reputation-based Trust Evaluation (RTE) module and Aggregation Trust Evaluation (ATE) module. Besides, a synthetic S-SN based on the famous Advogato dataset is deployed and the well-known Discount Cumulative Gain (DCG) metric is employed to measure the service recommendation performance of our IRLT model with comparing to that of the excellent CGLT model. The results illustrate that our IRLT model is slightly superior to the CGLT model in honest environment and significantly outperforms the CGLT model in terms of the robustness against unfair rating attacks.

How to Integrate HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in Namibia, the Epako Clinic Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomas Zapata

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Introduction: During the past two decades, HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health services in Namibia have been provided in silos, with high fragmentation. As a consequence of this, quality and efficiency of services in Primary Health Care has been compromised.  Methods: We conducted an operational research (observational pre-post study in a public health facility in Namibia. A health facility assessment was conducted before and after the integration of health services. A person-centred integrated model was implemented to integrate all health services provided at the health facility in addition to HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health services. Comprehensive services are provided by each health worker to the same patients over time (longitudinality, on a daily basis (accessibility and with a good external referral system (coordination. Prevalence rates of time flows and productivity were done.  Results: Integrated services improved accessibility, stigma and quality of antenatal care services by improving the provider-patient communication, reducing the time that patients stay in the clinic in 16% and reducing the waiting times in 14%. In addition, nurse productivity improved 85% and the expected time in the health facility was reduced 24% without compromising the uptake of TB, HIV, outpatient, antenatal care or first visit family planning services. Given the success on many indicators resulting from integration of services, the goal of this paper was to describe “how” health services have been integrated, the “process” followed and presenting some “results” from the integrated clinic.  Conclusions: Our study shows that HIV and SRH services can be effectively integrated by following the person-centred integrated model. Based on the Namibian experience on “how” to integrate health services and the “process” to achieve it, other African countries can replicate the model to move away from the silo approach and contribute to

Implementing and measuring the level of laboratory service integration in a program setting in Nigeria.

Science.gov (United States)

Mbah, Henry; Negedu-Momoh, Olubunmi Ruth; Adedokun, Oluwasanmi; Ikani, Patrick Anibbe; Balogun, Oluseyi; Sanwo, Olusola; Ochei, Kingsley; Ekanem, Maurice; Torpey, Kwasi

2014-01-01

The surge of donor funds to fight HIV&AIDS epidemic inadvertently resulted in the setup of laboratories as parallel structures to rapidly respond to the identified need. However these parallel structures are a threat to the existing fragile laboratory systems. Laboratory service integration is critical to remedy this situation. This paper describes an approach to quantitatively measure and track integration of HIV-related laboratory services into the mainstream laboratory services and highlight some key intervention steps taken, to enhance service integration. A quantitative before-and-after study conducted in 122 Family Health International (FHI360) supported health facilities across Nigeria. A minimum service package was identified including management structure; trainings; equipment utilization and maintenance; information, commodity and quality management for laboratory integration. A check list was used to assess facilities at baseline and 3 months follow-up. Level of integration was assessed on an ordinal scale (0 = no integration, 1 = partial integration, 2 = full integration) for each service package. A composite score grading expressed as a percentage of total obtainable score of 14 was defined and used to classify facilities (≤ 80% FULL, 25% to 79% PARTIAL and laboratory systems were 64 (52.5%) and 0 (0.0%) at baseline, compared to 100 (82.0%) and 3 (2.4%) respectively at 3 months follow-up (p = 0.000). This project showcases our novel approach to measure the status of each laboratory on the integration continuum.

The evaluation of viability in infarcted myocardium using gated blood pool scintigraphy during combined infusion of isosorbide dinitrate and dobutamine infusion

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kubota, Yasushi; Sugihara, Hiroki; Nakagawa, Tatsuya (Kyoto Prefectural Univ. of Medicine (Japan)) (and others)

1990-02-01

Nineteen patients with acute or old myocardial infarction underwent ECG-gated blood pool scintigraphy after iv injection of isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) and combined ISDN and dobutamine (D) (ISDN+D), with the purpose of evaluating wall motion abnormality, as well as hemodynamic parameters. Heart rate increased after iv injection of both ISDN and ISDN+D. Although diastolic and systolic blood pressures decreased with ISDN, they increased with ISDN+D. Left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) increased by iv injection of ISDN+D. Both end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes decreased with ISDN and ISDN+D. A decreased stroke volume was also associated with iv injection of ISDN. Wall motion abnormality in the infarcted myocardium was graded on a 1-5 score: 1-dyskinesis, 2-akinesis, 3-severe hypokinesis, 4-mild hypokinesis, and 5-normal. Improvement was observed in 43% for dyskinesis after iv injection of both ISDN and ISDN+D; in 54% and 65%, with ISDN and ISDN+D respectively, for akinesis and 53% and 77% for severe hypokinesis. In comparing wall motion score with relative Tl uptake (RTU) on exercise Tl-201 scintigraphy, the correlation between wall motion score and RTU on the 3-hr image was higher after iv injection of ISDN+D (r=0.66) than after iv injection of ISDN (r=0.57). Although a significantly improved regional EF after iv injection of ISDN+D was associated with redistributed segments on the 3-hr image, regional EF was sometimes improved even in the non-redistributed segments on the 3-hr image. (N.K.).

Integrating Diversity Education and Service Learning: A 15+ Year Journey Continues

Science.gov (United States)

Womble, Myra N.; Adams, Elaine

2016-01-01

This paper reports the 15+ year journey undertaken by university faculty to integrate service learning with diversity education. It has taken the faculty from its initial integration of academic community learning and diversity education in 1999 to its current course offering in 2015. The purpose of this integration has remained the same, to…

Teaching for Application: A Model for Assisting Pre-Service Teachers with Technology Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Hur, Jung Won; Cullen, Theresa; Brush, Thomas

2010-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a technology integration model designed to assist pre-service teachers to learn meaningful uses of technology in K-12 classrooms. Based on studies in teacher education, learning theory, and technology integration, the authors define five essential characteristics necessary for pre-service teacher…

Integration Processes on Civil Service Reform in the Eurasian Space

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

George A. Borshevskiy

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In the article was studied the process of reforming the institute of civil service in the countries of the Eurasian space (e.g. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The integration of national systems of public administration and, in particular, the civil service, is an important factor contributing to the implementation of the centripetal tendencies in the post-Soviet space. The research methodology is based on a combination of comparative legal analysis, historical retrospective method, normalization and scaling, structural-functional and system analysis. A comparison of the legal models of public service was made in research. The author puts forward the hypothesis that it is presence the relationship between the quantitative changes (for example, number of employees of civil service and the dynamics of macroeconomic indicators (e.g. number of employed in the economy. In this regard were observed common trends. On materials of the statistical surveys were considered quantitative changes in national systems of civil service. The study of the socio-demographic characteristics of the public service (gender, age, profession allowed to formulate conclusions about the general and specific trends in the reform of the civil service of the analyzed countries. A number of values were first calculated by the author. The work is intended to become the basis for a broad international research on the development of civil service, which is the central mechanism for implementation the integration in the post-Soviet space.

Methodological Approaches to Designing Integrated Systems of Management of Food Service Enterprises

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yatsun Leonid M.

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The article presents materials of studying the processes of designing functions and structures of management of food service enterprises by criteria of composition of the enterprise objectives, their participation in the integration process of production, sales and organization of consumption of food products and services. There have been defined a qualimetric estimation of parameters for enterprises of different size by types of tasks — manufacture of products, marketing activities, customer service, personnel management, etc. Balance schemes of the production and economic system of enterprises regarding cost components and output of food products and services have been developed. The integrated approaches to designing management systems of food service enterprises on the basis of coordination of parameters of the target, linear, functional and resource subsystems have been proposed.

Integration of Commercial Mobile Satellite Services into Naval Communications

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Stone, Cary

1997-01-01

Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) need to be integrated into Naval Communications. DoD SATCOM military owned systems fall well short of meeting DoD SATCOM requirements in general and mobile SATCOM specifically...

Video transmission on ATM networks. Ph.D. Thesis

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yun-Chung

1993-01-01

The broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) is expected to provide high-speed and flexible multimedia applications. Multimedia includes data, graphics, image, voice, and video. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is the adopted transport techniques for B-ISDN and has the potential for providing a more efficient and integrated environment for multimedia. It is believed that most broadband applications will make heavy use of visual information. The prospect of wide spread use of image and video communication has led to interest in coding algorithms for reducing bandwidth requirements and improving image quality. The major results of a study on the bridging of network transmission performance and video coding are: Using two representative video sequences, several video source models are developed. The fitness of these models are validated through the use of statistical tests and network queuing performance. A dual leaky bucket algorithm is proposed as an effective network policing function. The concept of the dual leaky bucket algorithm can be applied to a prioritized coding approach to achieve transmission efficiency. A mapping of the performance/control parameters at the network level into equivalent parameters at the video coding level is developed. Based on that, a complete set of principles for the design of video codecs for network transmission is proposed.

Improving Acceptance, Integration and Health among LGBT Service Members

Science.gov (United States)

2017-10-01

these stressors on LGBT service members is poorly understood, with very little data available on the unique physical and mental health needs of these...Bullying • Overall health • Healthcare utilization • Lost duty days • Sick call visits • Physical health symptoms • Sexual/gender identity disclosure...Award Numbers: W81XWH-15-1-0699 Title: Improving Acceptance, Integration and Health among LGBT Service Members Principal Investigators: Jeremy

Business process integration between European manufacturers and transport and logistics service providers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Ole; Lemoine, W

2005-01-01

The goal of the Supply Chain Management process is to create value for customers, stakeholders and all supply chain members, through the integration of disparate processes like manufacturing flow management, customer service and order fulfillment. However, many firms fail in the path of achieving...... a total integration. This study illustrates, from an empirical point of view, the problems associated to SC integration among European firms operating in global/international markets. The focus is on the relationship between two echelons in the supply chain: manufacturers and their transport and logistics...... service providers (TLSPs). The paper examines (1) the characteristics of the collaborative partnerships established between manufacturers and their TLSPs; (2) to what extent manufacturers and their TLSPs have integrated SC business processes; (3) the IT used to support the SC cooperation and integration...

76 FR 5834 - International Business Machines Corporation, Global Technology Services Business Unit, Integrated...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-02-02

... Machines Corporation, Global Technology Services Business Unit, Integrated Technology Services, Cost and..., applicable to workers of International Business Machines Corporation, Global Technology Services Business... engaged in activities related to support for the Global Technology Services Business Unit. The company...

Application of integrated modeling technique for data services ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper, therefore, describes the application of the integrated simulation technique for deriving the optimum resources required for data services in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) based private wide area network (WAN) to guarantee specific QoS requirement. The simulation tool drastically cuts the simulation ...

IRLT: Integrating Reputation and Local Trust for Trustworthy Service Recommendation in Service-Oriented Social Networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhiquan Liu

Full Text Available With the prevalence of Social Networks (SNs and services, plenty of trust models for Trustworthy Service Recommendation (TSR in Service-oriented SNs (S-SNs have been proposed. The reputation-based schemes usually do not contain user preferences and are vulnerable to unfair rating attacks. Meanwhile, the local trust-based schemes generally have low reliability or even fail to work when the trust path is too long or does not exist. Thus it is beneficial to integrate them for TSR in S-SNs. This work improves the state-of-the-art Combining Global and Local Trust (CGLT scheme and proposes a novel Integrating Reputation and Local Trust (IRLT model which mainly includes four modules, namely Service Recommendation Interface (SRI module, Local Trust-based Trust Evaluation (LTTE module, Reputation-based Trust Evaluation (RTE module and Aggregation Trust Evaluation (ATE module. Besides, a synthetic S-SN based on the famous Advogato dataset is deployed and the well-known Discount Cumulative Gain (DCG metric is employed to measure the service recommendation performance of our IRLT model with comparing to that of the excellent CGLT model. The results illustrate that our IRLT model is slightly superior to the CGLT model in honest environment and significantly outperforms the CGLT model in terms of the robustness against unfair rating attacks.

Integrating Social Services and Home-Based Primary Care for High-Risk Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Feinglass, Joe; Norman, Greg; Golden, Robyn L; Muramatsu, Naoko; Gelder, Michael; Cornwell, Thomas

2018-04-01

There is a consensus that our current hospital-intensive approach to care is deeply flawed. This review article describes the research evidence for developing a better system of care for high-cost, high-risk patients. It reviews the evidence that home-centered care and integration of health care with social services are the cornerstones of a more humane and efficient system. The article describes the strengths and weaknesses of research evaluating the effects of social services in addressing social determinants of health, and how social support is critical to successful acute care transition programs. It reviews the history of incorporating social services into care management, and the prospects that recent payment reforms and regulatory initiatives can succeed in stimulating the financial integration of social services into new care coordination initiatives. The article reviews the literature on home-based primary care for the chronically ill and disabled, and suggests that it is the emergence of this care modality that holds the greatest promise for delivery system reform. In the hope of stimulating further discussion and debate, the authors summarize existing viewpoints on how a home-centered system, which integrates social and medical services, might emerge in the next few years.

Integrating Family Planning and HIV Services at the Community ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

USER

Little is known on integrating HIV and family planning (FP) services in community settings. Using a cluster randomized ..... process evaluation data from several studies on facility-based ... PEPFAR blueprint: Creating an AIDS-free generation.

Integration of antenatal care services with health programmes in low– and middle– income countries: systematic review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thyra E de Jongh

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Antenatal care (ANC presents a potentially valuable platform for integrated delivery of additional health services for pregnant women–services that are vital to reduce the persistently high rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in low– and middle–income countries (LMICs. However, there is limited evidence on the impact of integrating health services with ANC to guide policy. This review assesses the impact of integration of postnatal and other health services with ANC on health services uptake and utilisation, health outcomes and user experience of care in LMICs.

A Framework for Sharing and Integrating Remote Sensing and GIS Models Based on Web Service

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zeqiang; Lin, Hui; Chen, Min; Liu, Deer; Bao, Ying; Ding, Yulin

2014-01-01

Sharing and integrating Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System/Science (GIS) models are critical for developing practical application systems. Facilitating model sharing and model integration is a problem for model publishers and model users, respectively. To address this problem, a framework based on a Web service for sharing and integrating RS and GIS models is proposed in this paper. The fundamental idea of the framework is to publish heterogeneous RS and GIS models into standard Web services for sharing and interoperation and then to integrate the RS and GIS models using Web services. For the former, a “black box” and a visual method are employed to facilitate the publishing of the models as Web services. For the latter, model integration based on the geospatial workflow and semantic supported marching method is introduced. Under this framework, model sharing and integration is applied for developing the Pearl River Delta water environment monitoring system. The results show that the framework can facilitate model sharing and model integration for model publishers and model users. PMID:24901016

A framework for sharing and integrating remote sensing and GIS models based on Web service.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zeqiang; Lin, Hui; Chen, Min; Liu, Deer; Bao, Ying; Ding, Yulin

2014-01-01

Sharing and integrating Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System/Science (GIS) models are critical for developing practical application systems. Facilitating model sharing and model integration is a problem for model publishers and model users, respectively. To address this problem, a framework based on a Web service for sharing and integrating RS and GIS models is proposed in this paper. The fundamental idea of the framework is to publish heterogeneous RS and GIS models into standard Web services for sharing and interoperation and then to integrate the RS and GIS models using Web services. For the former, a "black box" and a visual method are employed to facilitate the publishing of the models as Web services. For the latter, model integration based on the geospatial workflow and semantic supported marching method is introduced. Under this framework, model sharing and integration is applied for developing the Pearl River Delta water environment monitoring system. The results show that the framework can facilitate model sharing and model integration for model publishers and model users.

Implementing and measuring the level of laboratory service integration in a program setting in Nigeria.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Henry Mbah

Full Text Available The surge of donor funds to fight HIV&AIDS epidemic inadvertently resulted in the setup of laboratories as parallel structures to rapidly respond to the identified need. However these parallel structures are a threat to the existing fragile laboratory systems. Laboratory service integration is critical to remedy this situation. This paper describes an approach to quantitatively measure and track integration of HIV-related laboratory services into the mainstream laboratory services and highlight some key intervention steps taken, to enhance service integration.A quantitative before-and-after study conducted in 122 Family Health International (FHI360 supported health facilities across Nigeria. A minimum service package was identified including management structure; trainings; equipment utilization and maintenance; information, commodity and quality management for laboratory integration. A check list was used to assess facilities at baseline and 3 months follow-up. Level of integration was assessed on an ordinal scale (0 = no integration, 1 = partial integration, 2 = full integration for each service package. A composite score grading expressed as a percentage of total obtainable score of 14 was defined and used to classify facilities (≤ 80% FULL, 25% to 79% PARTIAL and <25% NO integration. Weaknesses were noted and addressed.We analyzed 9 (7.4% primary, 104 (85.2% secondary and 9 (7.4% tertiary level facilities. There were statistically significant differences in integration levels between baseline and 3 months follow-up period (p<0.01. Baseline median total integration score was 4 (IQR 3 to 5 compared to 7 (IQR 4 to 9 at 3 months follow-up (p = 0.000. Partial and fully integrated laboratory systems were 64 (52.5% and 0 (0.0% at baseline, compared to 100 (82.0% and 3 (2.4% respectively at 3 months follow-up (p = 0.000.This project showcases our novel approach to measure the status of each laboratory on the integration continuum.

One stop shop versus collaborative integration: what is the best way of delivering sexual health services?

Science.gov (United States)

French, R S; Coope, C M; Graham, A; Gerressu, M; Salisbury, C; Stephenson, J M

2006-06-01

To examine various models of integrated and/or one stop shop (OSS) sexual health services (including general practice, mainstream specialist services, and designated young people's services) and explore their relative strengths and weaknesses. Literature review and interviews with key informants involved in developing the National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV (n = 11). The paper focuses on five broad perspectives (logistics, public health, users, staff, and cost). Contraceptive and genitourinary medicine issues are closely related. However, there is no agreement about what is meant by having "integrated" services, about which services should be integrated, or where integration should happen. There are concerns that OSSs will result in over-centralisation, to the disadvantage of stand alone and satellite services. OSS models are potentially more user focused, but the stigma that surrounds sexual health services may create an access barrier. From staff perspectives, the advantages are greater career opportunities and increased responsibility, while the disadvantages are concern that OSSs will result in loss of expertise and professional status. Cost effectiveness data are contradictory. Although there is a policy commitment to look at how integrated services can be better developed, more evidence is required on the impact and appropriateness of this approach.

Health Systems Integration of Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV Services in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Study

Science.gov (United States)

Kendall, Tamil; Langer, Ana; Bärnighausen, Till

2014-01-01

Objective: Both sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and HIV programs in sub-Saharan Africa are typically delivered vertically, operating parallel to national health systems. The objective of this study was to map the evidence on national and international strategies for integration of SRH and HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa and to develop a research agenda for future health systems integration. Methods: We examined the literature on national and international strategies to integrate SRH and HIV services using a scoping study methodology. Current policy frameworks, national HIV strategies and research, and gray literature on integration were mapped. Five countries in sub-Saharan Africa with experience of integrating SRH and HIV services were purposively sampled for detailed thematic analysis, according to the health systems functions of governance, policy and planning, financing, health workforce organization, service organization, and monitoring and evaluation. Results: The major international health policies and donor guidance now support integration. Most integration research has focused on linkages of SRH and HIV front-line services. Yet, the common problems with implementation are related to delayed or incomplete integration of higher level health systems functions: lack of coordinated leadership and unified national integration policies; separate financing streams for SRH and HIV services and inadequate health worker training, supervision and retention. Conclusions: Rigorous health systems research on the integration of SRH and HIV services is urgently needed. Priority research areas include integration impact, performance, and economic evaluation to inform the planning, financing, and coordination of integrated service delivery. PMID:25436826

How Does PCSI Help Deliver Integrated Services?

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

2009-12-07

This podcast describes how PCSI strengthens collaborative work across disease areas and integrates services that are provided by related programs, especially prevention activities related to HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and tuberculosis (TB) at the client level.  Created: 12/7/2009 by National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP).   Date Released: 12/7/2009.

Study on e-government services quality: The integration of online and offline services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing Fan

2015-05-01

integration effect of online and offline services. Its conclusions can be references for the application of traditional information system service model in the field of e-government.

Evaluation of pre-service training on integrated management of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Evaluation of pre-service training on integrated management of neonatal and childhood ... and reviews of pediatric course outlines and other teaching/learning materials. ... Of the 34 programs 22 were diploma nursing, 6 Bachelor of Sciences ...

Data communications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ann, Byeong Ho; Baek, Jeong Hun

1998-01-01

The contents of this book are notion of data communications : summary on data communication, data transmission, data communications system, data transmission technology, data conversion, data link control and control over error of data transmission and exchange of data communications network in the first part, computer communications network architecture : data communications architecture, OSI model, lower layer of OSI model, upper layer of OSI model and distributed surroundings in the second part, data information networking : LAN, FDDI, 100 Base T, DQDB and Frame Relay in the third part, Public Network : PSDN, N-ISDN, B-ISDN in the fourth part, internet and PC communication : emulator program, Binary file, BBS, E-mail service and user on-line service in the last part.

Integrating cervical cancer screening and preventive treatment with family planning and HIV-related services.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Heather L; Meglioli, Alejandra; Chowdhury, Raveena; Nuccio, Olivia

2017-07-01

Cervical cancer is a leading cause of mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa-in large part because of inadequate coverage of screening and preventive treatment services. A number of programs have begun integrating cervical cancer prevention services into existing family planning or HIV/AIDS service delivery platforms, to rapidly expand "screen and treat" programs and mitigate cervical cancer burden. Drawing upon a review of literature and our experiences, we consider benefits and challenges associated with such programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. We then outline steps that can optimize uptake and sustainability of integrated sexual and reproductive health services. These include increasing coordination among implementing organizations for efficient use of resources; task shifting for services that can be provided by nonphysicians; mobilizing communities via trusted frontline health workers; strengthening management information systems to allow for monitoring of multiple services; and prioritizing an operational research agenda to provide further evidence on the cost-effectiveness and benefits of integrated service delivery. © 2017 The Authors. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

Mutual benefits in academic-service partnership: An integrative review.

Science.gov (United States)

Sadeghnezhad, Maliheh; Heshmati Nabavi, Fatemeh; Najafi, Fereshteh; Kareshki, Hossein; Esmaily, Habibollah

2018-05-30

Academic and service institutions involve with many challenges. Partnership programs are a golden opportunity to achieve mutual benefits to overcome these challenges. Identifying mutual benefits is the cornerstone of forming a successful partnership and guarantee to its continuity. There are definitions and instances of mutual benefits in the literature related to partnership programs, but there is no coherent evidence and clear picture of these benefits. This study is conducted to identify mutual benefits in academic-service partnership by analyzing the definitions and instances of it in the literature. An integrative review of key papers regarding mutual benefits in academic-service partnership was undertaken. This review was guided by the framework described by Whittemore and Knafl. Search of the following databases was conducted: MEDLINE, ERIC, Google Scholar, Emerald Insight and Science Direct. The search terms were mutual benefits, mutual gains, mutual interest, mutual expectations, mutual goals, mutual demand, partnership, collaboration, academic-service partnership and academic service collaboration. Cooper's five-stage integrative review method was used. Quality evaluation of articles was conducted. Data were abstracted from included articles. The analysis was conducted based on the qualitative content analysis of the literature suggested by Zhang and Wildemuth. 28 articles were included in this review. Mutual benefits are described in four categories include: synergy in training and empowerment of human resources, education improvement, access to shared resources, facilitate production and application of beneficial knowledge into practice. Mutual benefits in the academic-service partnership include a range of goals, interests, expectations, and needs of partner organizations that is achievable and measurable through joint planning and collaboration. We suggest academic and service policymakers to consider these benefits in the planning and evaluating

Graph-Based Semantic Web Service Composition for Healthcare Data Integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Arch-Int, Ngamnij; Arch-Int, Somjit; Sonsilphong, Suphachoke; Wanchai, Paweena

2017-01-01

Within the numerous and heterogeneous web services offered through different sources, automatic web services composition is the most convenient method for building complex business processes that permit invocation of multiple existing atomic services. The current solutions in functional web services composition lack autonomous queries of semantic matches within the parameters of web services, which are necessary in the composition of large-scale related services. In this paper, we propose a graph-based Semantic Web Services composition system consisting of two subsystems: management time and run time. The management-time subsystem is responsible for dependency graph preparation in which a dependency graph of related services is generated automatically according to the proposed semantic matchmaking rules. The run-time subsystem is responsible for discovering the potential web services and nonredundant web services composition of a user's query using a graph-based searching algorithm. The proposed approach was applied to healthcare data integration in different health organizations and was evaluated according to two aspects: execution time measurement and correctness measurement.

INTEGRATED SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN AIR TRAFFIC SERVICES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Volodymyr Kharchenko

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the analysis of the researches conducted in the field of safety management systems.Safety management system framework, methods and tools for safety analysis in Air Traffic Control have been reviewed.Principles of development of Integrated safety management system in Air Traffic Services have been proposed.

Seamless Integration of RESTful Services into the Web of Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Markus Lanthaler

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We live in an era of ever-increasing abundance of data. To cope with the information overload we suffer from every single day, more sophisticated methods are required to access, manipulate, and analyze these humongous amounts of data. By embracing the heterogeneity, which is unavoidable at such a scale, and accepting the fact that the data quality and meaning are fuzzy, more adaptable, flexible, and extensible systems can be built. RESTful services combined with Semantic Web technologies could prove to be a viable path to achieve that. Their combination allows data integration on an unprecedented scale and solves some of the problems Web developers are continuously struggling with. This paper introduces a novel approach to create machine-readable descriptions for RESTful services as a first step towards this ambitious goal. It also shows how these descriptions along with an algorithm to translate SPARQL queries to HTTP requests can be used to integrate RESTful services into a global read-write Web of Data.

Integrating mental health services into primary HIV care for women: the Whole Life project.

OpenAIRE

Dodds, Sally; Nuehring, Elane M.; Blaney, Nancy T.; Blakley, Theresa; Lizzotte, Jean-Marie; Lopez, Myriam; Potter, JoNell E.; O'Sullivan, Mary J.

2004-01-01

The high rate of mental health problems in HIV-infected women jeopardizes the health of this vulnerable population, and constitutes a mandate for integrating mental health services into HIV primary care. The Whole Life project-a collaboration of the departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynecology at the University of Miami School of Medicine-successfully integrated mental health services into primary HIV care for women. This article describes the conceptual framework of the integration, i...

California Integrated Service Delivery Evaluation Report. Phase I

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Richard W.; Rossy, Gerard; Roberts, William; Chapman, Kenneth; Sanchez, Urte; Hanley, Chris

2010-01-01

This study is a formative evaluation of the OneStop Career Center Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) Model within the California Workforce System. The study was sponsored by the California Workforce Investment Board. The study completed four in-depth case studies of California OneStops to describe how they implemented the ISD model which brings…

Sharing Service Resource Information for Application Integration in a Virtual Enterprise - Modeling the Communication Protocol for Exchanging Service Resource Information

Science.gov (United States)

Yamada, Hiroshi; Kawaguchi, Akira

Grid computing and web service technologies enable us to use networked resources in a coordinated manner. An integrated service is made of individual services running on coordinated resources. In order to achieve such coordinated services autonomously, the initiator of a coordinated service needs to know detailed service resource information. This information ranges from static attributes like the IP address of the application server to highly dynamic ones like the CPU load. The most famous wide-area service discovery mechanism based on names is DNS. Its hierarchical tree organization and caching methods take advantage of the static information managed. However, in order to integrate business applications in a virtual enterprise, we need a discovery mechanism to search for the optimal resources based on the given a set of criteria (search keys). In this paper, we propose a communication protocol for exchanging service resource information among wide-area systems. We introduce the concept of the service domain that consists of service providers managed under the same management policy. This concept of the service domain is similar to that for autonomous systems (ASs). In each service domain, the service information provider manages the service resource information of service providers that exist in this service domain. The service resource information provider exchanges this information with other service resource information providers that belong to the different service domains. We also verified the protocol's behavior and effectiveness using a simulation model developed for proposed protocol.

A Platform for Mobile Service Provisioning Based on SOA-Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Decker, Michael; Bulander, Rebecca

A middleware platform designed for the provisioning of data services for mobile computers using wireless data communication (e.g. smartphones or PDAs) has to offer a variety of different features. Some of these features have to be provided by external parties, e.g. billing or content syndication. The integration of all these features while considering mobile-specific challenges is a demanding task. In the article at hand we thus describe a middleware platform for mobile services which follows the idea of a so called Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). We explain the concept of ESB and argue why an ESB is an appropriate fundament for a platform for mobile service provisioning.

English language pre-service and in-service teachers’ self-efficacy and attitudes towards integration of students with learning difficulties

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cimermanová Ivana

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The study of foreign languages is obligatory for all pupils in Slovakia, where the first foreign language is English. Conforming to integration legislation, pupils with special educational needs (SEN are taught in mainstream classes. Foreign language teachers, however, lack training and where not prepared how to apply teaching methods and techniques for pupils with SEN in the regular language learning class. In the study presented, 187 elementary school teachers filled out questionnaires dealing with integration of pupils with SEN and possible inclusion of learners with disabilities in Slovakia and a group of 56 university FLT students - teachers-to-be. Teachers are not forced and/or encouraged to take part in in-service courses or other education on how to teach these pupils. The pre-service teachers are offered courses on SEN teaching, however, these are not compulsory and mostly general education oriented. The majority of in-service and pre-service teachers felt that pupils with SEN should be taught in regular education class. The article also describes the current situation concerning integration of students with SEN using the official statistical data.

Organizing integrated health-care services to meet older people's needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Araujo de Carvalho, Islene; Epping-Jordan, JoAnne; Pot, Anne Margriet; Kelley, Edward; Toro, Nuria; Thiyagarajan, Jotheeswaran A; Beard, John R

2017-11-01

In most countries, a fundamental shift in the focus of clinical care for older people is needed. Instead of trying to manage numerous diseases and symptoms in a disjointed fashion, the emphasis should be on interventions that optimize older people's physical and mental capacities over their life course and that enable them to do the things they value. This, in turn, requires a change in the way services are organized: there should be more integration within the health system and between health and social services. Existing organizational structures do not have to merge; rather, a wide array of service providers must work together in a more coordinated fashion. The evidence suggests that integrated health and social care for older people contributes to better health outcomes at a cost equivalent to usual care, thereby giving a better return on investment than more familiar ways of working. Moreover, older people can participate in, and contribute to, society for longer. Integration at the level of clinical care is especially important: older people should undergo comprehensive assessments with the goal of optimizing functional ability and care plans should be shared among all providers. At the health system level, integrated care requires: (i) supportive policy, plans and regulatory frameworks; (ii) workforce development; (iii) investment in information and communication technologies; and (iv) the use of pooled budgets, bundled payments and contractual incentives. However, action can be taken at all levels of health care from front-line providers through to senior leaders - everyone has a role to play.

Channel integration in governmental service delivery: the effects on citizen behavior and perceptions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pieterson, Willem Jan; Teerling, Marije; Wimmer, Maria A.; Scholl, Hans J.; Janssen, Marijn; Traunmüller, Roland

2009-01-01

Governmental agencies continuously work on the improvement of their service delivery through an array of channels. To improve service satisfaction and to reduce the cost of service delivery, channel integration gets more popular with governmental agencies. In a quasi experimental longitudinal field

On Line Service Composition in the Integrated Clinical Environment for eHealth and Medical Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

García-Valls, Marisol; Touahria, Imad Eddine

2017-06-08

Medical and eHealth systems are progressively realized in the context of standardized architectures that support safety and ease the integration of the heterogeneous (and often proprietary) medical devices and sensors. The Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE) architecture appeared recently with the goal of becoming a common framework for defining the structure of the medical applications as concerns the safe integration of medical devices and sensors. ICE is simply a high level architecture that defines the functional blocks that should be part of a medical system to support interoperability. As a result, the underlying communication backbone is broadly undefined as concerns the enabling software technology (including the middleware) and associated algorithms that meet the ICE requirements of the flexible integration of medical devices and services. Supporting the on line composition of services in a medical system is also not part of ICE; however, supporting this behavior would enable flexible orchestration of functions (e.g., addition and/or removal of services and medical equipment) on the fly. iLandis one of the few software technologies that supports on line service composition and reconfiguration, ensuring time-bounded transitions across different service orchestrations; it supports the design, deployment and on line reconfiguration of applications, which this paper applies to service-based eHealth domains. This paper designs the integration between ICE architecture and iLand middleware to enhance the capabilities of ICE with on line service composition and the time-bounded reconfiguration of medical systems based on distributed services. A prototype implementation of a service-based eHealth system for the remote monitoring of patients is described; it validates the enhanced capacity of ICE to support dynamic reconfiguration of the application services. Results show that the temporal cost of the on line reconfiguration of the eHealth application is bounded

The politics of tuberculosis and HIV service integration in Ghana.

Science.gov (United States)

Amo-Adjei, Joshua; Kumi-Kyereme, Akwasi; Fosuah Amo, Hannah; Awusabo-Asare, Kofi

2014-09-01

The need to integrate TB/HIV control programmes has become critical due to the comorbidity regarding these diseases and the need to optimise the use of resources. In developing countries such as Ghana, where public health interventions depend on donor funds, the integration of the two programmes has become more urgent. This paper explores stakeholders' views on the integration of TB/HIV control programmes in Ghana within the remits of contingency theory. With 31 purposively selected informants from four regions, semi-structured interviews and observations were conducted between March and May 2012, and the data collected were analysed using the inductive approach. The results showed both support for and opposition to integration, as well as some of the avoidable challenges inherent in combining TB/HIV control. While those who supported integration based their arguments on clinical synergies and the need to promote the efficient use of resources, those who opposed integration cited the potential increase in workload, the clinical complications associated with joint management, the potential for a leadership crisis, and the "smaller the better" propositions to support their stance. Although a policy on TB/HIV integration exists, inadequate 'political will' from the top management of both programmes has trickled down to lower levels, which has stifled progress towards the comprehensive management of TB/HIV and particularly leading to weak data collection and management structures and unsatisfactory administration of co-trimoxazole for co-infected patients. It is our view that the leadership of both programmes show an increased commitment to protocols involving the integration of TB/HIV, followed by a commitment to addressing the 'fears' of frontline service providers to encourage confidence in the process of service integration. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Breast cancer patients' satisfaction with individual therapy goals and treatment in a standardized integrative medicine consultancy service.

Science.gov (United States)

Hack, Carolin C; Antoniadis, Sophia; Hackl, Janina; Langemann, Hanna; Schwitulla, Judith; Fasching, Peter A; Beckmann, Matthias W; Theuser, Anna-Katharin

2018-04-27

Complementary medicine services are nowadays usually quite heterogeneous, and little information is available on standards for running an integrative medicine consultancy service. This study aimed to assess patients' satisfaction with a standardized treatment service on integrative medicine. Using a cross-sectional design, 75 breast cancer patients from the integrative medicine consultancy service at the University Breast Center for Franconia were evaluated between January 2016 and March 2017. At primary consultation, patients answered a standardized questionnaire on their medical history and treatment goals regarding integrative medicine. In a subsequent interview, patients evaluated their satisfaction with the treatment service and individual treatment goals. 72% of the patients (n = 54) reported high satisfaction with the overall approach of the treatment service. 76% of the patients (n = 57) were very satisfied or satisfied with their individual treatment plans. The most frequently reported goals were to slow tumor progression (n = 64, 85.3%), reducing the side effects of conventional cancer treatments (n = 60, 80%), and a desire to participate actively in the treatment of breast cancer (n = 64, 85.3%). Using a standardized procedure in integrative medicine allows a high quality level to be offered to patients. Overall, breast cancer patients report very high satisfaction with the integrative medicine consultancy service and state long-term treatment goals. Hence, long-term treatment with integrative medicine methods should be taken into consideration.

Determinants of facility readiness for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling services: evidence from the Tanzania service provision assessment survey, 2014-2015.

Science.gov (United States)

Bintabara, Deogratius; Nakamura, Keiko; Seino, Kaoruko

2017-12-22

Global policy reports, national frameworks, and programmatic tools and guidance emphasize the integration of family planning and HIV testing and counseling services to ensure universal access to reproductive health care and HIV prevention. However, the status of integration between these two services in Tanzanian health facilities is unclear. This study examined determinants of facility readiness for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling services in Tanzania. Data from the 2014-2015 Tanzania Service Provision Assessment Survey were analyzed. Facilities were considered ready for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling services if they scored ≥ 50% on both family planning and HIV testing and counseling service readiness indices as identified by the World Health Organization. All analyses were adjusted for clustering effects, and estimates were weighted to correct for non-responses and disproportionate sampling. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. A total of 1188 health facilities were included in the study. Of all of the health facilities, 915 (77%) reported offering both family planning and HIV testing and counseling services, while only 536 (45%) were considered ready to integrate these two services. Significant determinants of facility readiness for integrating these two services were being government owned [AOR = 3.2; 95%CI, 1.9-5.6], having routine management meetings [AOR = 1.9; 95%CI, 1.1-3.3], availability of guidelines [AOR = 3.8; 95%CI, 2.4-5.8], in-service training of staff [AOR = 2.6; 95%CI, 1.3-5.2], and availability of laboratories for HIV testing [AOR = 17.1; 95%CI, 8.2-35.6]. The proportion of facility readiness for the integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling in Tanzania is unsatisfactory. The Ministry of Health should distribute and ensure constant availability of guidelines, availability of rapid diagnostic

A systematic approach to the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of integrated health services.

Science.gov (United States)

Reynolds, Heidi W; Sutherland, Elizabeth G

2013-05-06

Because of the current emphasis and enthusiasm focused on integration of health systems, there is a risk of piling resources into integrated strategies without the necessary systems in place to monitor their progress adequately or to measure impact, and to learn from these efforts. The rush to intervene without adequate monitoring and evaluation will continue to result in a weak evidence base for decision making and resource allocation. Program planning and implementation are inextricability linked to monitoring and evaluation. Country level guidance is needed to identify country-specific integrated strategies, thereby increasing country ownership. This paper focuses on integrated health services but takes into account how health services are influenced by the health system, managed by programs, and made up of interventions. We apply the principles in existing comprehensive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks in order to outline a systematic approach to the M&E of integration for the country level. The approach is grounded by first defining the country-specific health challenges that integration is intended to affect. Priority points of contact for care can directly influence health, and essential packages of integration for all major client presentations need to be defined. Logic models are necessary to outline the plausible causal pathways and define the inputs, roles and responsibilities, indicators, and data sources across the health system. Finally, we recommend improvements to the health information system and in data use to ensure that data are available to inform decisions, because changes in the M&E function to make it more integrated will also facilitate integration in the service delivery, planning, and governance components. This approach described in the paper is the ideal, but its application at the country level can help reveal gaps and guide decisions related to what health services to prioritize for integration, help plan for how to

Business model driven service architecture design for enterprise application integration

OpenAIRE

Gacitua-Decar, Veronica; Pahl, Claus

2008-01-01

Increasingly, organisations are using a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) as an approach to Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), which is required for the automation of business processes. This paper presents an architecture development process which guides the transition from business models to a service-based software architecture. The process is supported by business reference models and patterns. Firstly, the business process models are enhanced with domain model elements, applicat...

Integrated inspection of services for people with learning disabilities in Scotland: the way forward?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Campbell

2007-10-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The article summarises the process and the results of the first, integrated inspection of managed care services for people with learning disabilities in Scotland. The multi-agency model used was developed to be congruent with the existing performance inspection models, used by single agency inspection. The inspection activities and main outcomes are described, and suggestions are made for improvements. Context of case: In 2006 an inspection model was devised to assess the quality of health, social services and education services for people with learning disabilities in one geographical area of Scotland, as a precursor to a programme of inspections nationally. The first joint, integrated inspection of all services for people with learning disabilities in Scotland took place in June 2006, and the report was published in March 2007. This was the first multi-agency inspection of its kind in the UK, and the first to involve carers and people with learning disabilities on the inspection team. Data sources: A number of data sources were used to check existing practice against agreed Quality Outcome indicators. Primary sources of data were social work records, health records, education records, staff surveys, carer surveys, interviews with staff, family carers and people with learning disabilities, and self evaluations completed by the services being inspected. Eleven different domains, each with sub-indicators were investigated. Case description: This paper summarises the process of an integrated, multi-agency inspection, how the inspection activities were conducted and the main findings of this inspection. Practical improvements to the process are suggested, and these may be of use to other services and inspectorates. Conclusions and discussion: The integrated inspection was a qualified success. Most major objectives were achieved. The sharing of data amongst inspection agencies, establishing the level of commitment to integrated inspection

Integrated approach to transmission services pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yu, C.W.; David, A.K.

1999-01-01

The paper presents an intuitively logical split between: (a) embedded, (b) operating, and (c) expansion cost based pricing and methodologies for implementation, for transmission services. A conceptually straightforward mechanism for the equitable allocation of transmission network embedded cost recovery based on capacity-use and reliability benefit is proposed, expansion cost is charged on a long-run marginal cost basis and finally, operating cost recovery is based on short-run marginal pricing. This is followed by co-ordinating these alternatives and integrating the pricing mechanisms to achieve appropriate price signals for bulk power users of transmission systems. (author)

Nurses' Needs for Care Robots in Integrated Nursing Care Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jai-Yon; Song, Young Ae; Jung, Ji Young; Kim, Hyun Jeong; Kim, Bo Ram; Do, Hyun-Kyung; Lim, Jae-Young

2018-05-13

To determine the need for care robots among nurses and to suggest how robotic care should be prioritized in an integrated nursing care services. Korea is expected to be a super-aged society by 2030. To solve care issues with elderly inpatient caused by informal caregivers, the government introduced 'integrated nursing care services'; these are comprehensive care systems staffed by professionally trained nurses. To assist them, a care robot development project has been launched. The study applied a cross-sectional survey. In 2016, we conducted a multi-center survey involving 302 registered nurses in five hospitals including three tertiary and two secondary hospitals in Korea. The questionnaire consisted of general characteristics of nurses and their views on and extents of agreement about issues associated with robotic care. Trial center nurses and those with ≥10 years of experience reported positively on the prospects for robotic care. The top three desired primary roles for care robots were 'measuring/monitoring', 'mobility/activity' and 'safety care'. 'Reduction in workload', especially in terms of 'other nursing services' which were categorized as non-value-added nursing activities, was the most valued feature. The nurses approved of the aid by care robots but were concerned about device malfunction and interruption of rapport with patients. Care robots are expected to be effective in integrated nursing care services, particularly in 'measuring/monitoring'. Such robots should decrease nurses' workload and minimize non-value-added nursing activities efficiently. No matter how excellent care robots are, they must co-operate with and be controlled by nurses. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

PRISMA: Program of Research to Integrate the Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy. A system-level integration model in Quebec

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Margaret MacAdam

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The Program of Research to Integrate the Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy (PRISMA began in Quebec in 1999. Evaluation results indicated that the PRISMA Project improved the system of care for the frail elderly at no additional cost. In 2001, the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services made implementing the six features of the PRISMA approach a province-wide goal in the programme now known as RSIPA (French acronym. Extensive Province-wide progress has been made since then, but ongoing challenges include reducing unmet need for case management and home care services, creating incentives for increased physician participation in care planning and improving the computerized client chart, among others. PRISMA is the only evaluated international model of a coordination approach to integration and one of the few, if not the only, integration model to have been adopted at the system level by policy-makers.

Electronic Government In Democratic Public Service In One Door Integrated Permit Handling Services Agency In The City Of Samarinda

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iman Surya

2015-01-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Electronic government needs to carry out in a fundamental public services of democracy. But in practice BPPTSP one door integrated permit service board of Samarinda not able to perform the activities. The aim of this research described analyzing electronic government and public services in a democracy. The methodology used in this research using descriptive qualitative approach the study was on the one door integrated permit service of Samarinda respondents in Samarinda the mayor head of Samarinda the citizen private group of government agencies and interests. Then variable measured in electronic government includes support capacity value and public services including democratic information consultancy and participation. The results of research shows that the variables measured having a deficiency and inability in accommodate aspirations built between citizens and the government in developing electronic democratic government. It is influenced by the absence of elements of liaison which is justice diversity and access electronic between government and public services that make democratic BPPTSP the inability of the city of Samarinda to make changes in depth in an effort to build and create a public being communicative with citizens.

Pre-Service Physics and Chemistry Teachers' Conceptual Integration of Physics and Chemistry Concepts

Science.gov (United States)

Tuysuz, Mustafa; Bektas, Oktay; Geban, Omer; Ozturk, Gokhan; Yalvac, Bugrahan

2016-01-01

This study examines the pre-service teachers' opinions about conceptual integration (CI) and their understanding of it. A qualitative phenomenology design was used in the study. Data was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews comprising ten guiding questions. Three pre-service physics and three pre-service chemistry teachers…

Integrating technology readiness into the expectation-confirmation model: an empirical study of mobile services.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Shih-Chih; Liu, Ming-Ling; Lin, Chieh-Peng

2013-08-01

The aim of this study was to integrate technology readiness into the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) for explaining individuals' continuance of mobile data service usage. After reviewing the ECM and technology readiness, an integrated model was demonstrated via empirical data. Compared with the original ECM, the findings of this study show that the integrated model may offer an ameliorated way to clarify what factors and how they influence the continuous intention toward mobile services. Finally, the major findings are summarized, and future research directions are suggested.

Integrating adaptive management and ecosystem services concepts to improve natural resource management: Challenges and opportunities

Science.gov (United States)

Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca S.; Boyd, James W.; Macauley, Molly K.; Scarlett, Lynn; Shapiro, Carl D.; Williams, Byron K.

2018-05-07

Executive Summary—OverviewNatural resource managers must make decisions that affect broad-scale ecosystem processes involving large spatial areas, complex biophysical interactions, numerous competing stakeholder interests, and highly uncertain outcomes. Natural and social science information and analyses are widely recognized as important for informing effective management. Chief among the systematic approaches for improving the integration of science into natural resource management are two emergent science concepts, adaptive management and ecosystem services. Adaptive management (also referred to as “adaptive decision making”) is a deliberate process of learning by doing that focuses on reducing uncertainties about management outcomes and system responses to improve management over time. Ecosystem services is a conceptual framework that refers to the attributes and outputs of ecosystems (and their components and functions) that have value for humans.This report explores how ecosystem services can be moved from concept into practice through connection to a decision framework—adaptive management—that accounts for inherent uncertainties. Simultaneously, the report examines the value of incorporating ecosystem services framing and concepts into adaptive management efforts.Adaptive management and ecosystem services analyses have not typically been used jointly in decision making. However, as frameworks, they have a natural—but to date underexplored—affinity. Both are policy and decision oriented in that they attempt to represent the consequences of resource management choices on outcomes of interest to stakeholders. Both adaptive management and ecosystem services analysis take an empirical approach to the analysis of ecological systems. This systems orientation is a byproduct of the fact that natural resource actions affect ecosystems—and corresponding societal outcomes—often across large geographic scales. Moreover, because both frameworks focus on

Orion European Service Module (ESM) Development, Integration and Qualification Status

Science.gov (United States)

Berthe, Philippe; Over, Ann P.; Picardo, Michelle; Byers, Anthony W.

2017-01-01

ESA and the European Industry are supplying the European Service Module for Orion. An overview of the system and subsystem configuration of the Orion European Service Module (ESM) as designed and built for the EM-1 mission is provided as well as an outline of its development, assembly, integration and verification process performed by ESA and NASA in coordination with their respective Industrial prime contractors, Airbus Defence and Space and Lockheed Martin.

Implementation of integrated services networks in Quebec and nursing practice transformation: convergence or divergence?

Science.gov (United States)

Longpré, Caroline; Dubois, Carl-Ardy

2015-03-03

Even though nurses are expected to play a key role in implementing integrated services networks, up to now their practice in this regard has received very little research attention. The aim of this study is to describe the extent to which the evolution of nursing practice in Quebec in recent years has converged with the requirements and efforts involved in services integration. This descriptive study was carried out with 107 nurses working an integrated network of healthcare services in Quebec in four different care pathways: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, autonomy support for the elderly, palliative oncology care, and mental health. Development model for integrated care (DMIC) was used, first, to examine the prevalence in each pathway of integrative activities, grouped into nine practice dimensions, and then to position each pathway in relation to the four phases of development for any integration process, as defined by the DMIC. Only one pathway had reached Phase 3, which involves expansion and monitoring of integration, whereas the others were still in the preliminary Phases 1 and 2 characterized by initiative and experimentation. Only two dimensions out of nine ('quality of care' and 'interprofessional teamwork') were prevalent in all the pathways; two others ('transparent entrepreneurship' and 'performance management') were in none of the pathways, and the remaining five ('patient-family centered care', 'result-focused learning', 'delivery system', 'commitment', 'roles and tasks') were present to varying degrees. These results suggest that particular efforts should be made to bridge the significant gap between the pace of nursing practice transformation and the objectives of service integration. These efforts should focus, among other things, on the deployment of organizational, clinical, human, and material resources to support practice renewal and continuing education for nurses to prepare them for the requirements of integration.

'Trust and teamwork matter': community health workers' experiences in integrated service delivery in India.

Science.gov (United States)

Mishra, Arima

2014-01-01

A comprehensive and integrated approach to strengthen primary health care has been the major thrust of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) that was launched in 2005 to revamp India's rural public health system. Though the logic of horizontal and integrated health care to strengthen health systems has long been acknowledged at policy level, empirical evidence on how such integration operates is rare. Based on recent (2011-2012) ethnographic fieldwork in Odisha, India, this article discusses community health workers' experiences in integrated service delivery through village-level outreach sessions within the NRHM. It shows that for health workers, the notion of integration goes well beyond a technical lens of mixing different health services. Crucially, they perceive 'teamwork' and 'building trust with the community' (beyond trust in health services) to be critical components of their practice. However, the comprehensive NRHM primary health care ideology - which the health workers espouse - is in constant tension with the exigencies of narrow indicators of health system performance. Our ethnography shows how monitoring mechanisms, the institutionalised privileging of statistical evidence over field-based knowledge and the highly hierarchical health bureaucratic structure that rests on top-down communications mitigate efforts towards sustainable health system integration.

Integrated Semantics Service Platform for the Internet of Things: A Case Study of a Smart Office

Science.gov (United States)

Ryu, Minwoo; Kim, Jaeho; Yun, Jaeseok

2015-01-01

The Internet of Things (IoT) allows machines and devices in the world to connect with each other and generate a huge amount of data, which has a great potential to provide useful knowledge across service domains. Combining the context of IoT with semantic technologies, we can build integrated semantic systems to support semantic interoperability. In this paper, we propose an integrated semantic service platform (ISSP) to support ontological models in various IoT-based service domains of a smart city. In particular, we address three main problems for providing integrated semantic services together with IoT systems: semantic discovery, dynamic semantic representation, and semantic data repository for IoT resources. To show the feasibility of the ISSP, we develop a prototype service for a smart office using the ISSP, which can provide a preset, personalized office environment by interpreting user text input via a smartphone. We also discuss a scenario to show how the ISSP-based method would help build a smart city, where services in each service domain can discover and exploit IoT resources that are wanted across domains. We expect that our method could eventually contribute to providing people in a smart city with more integrated, comprehensive services based on semantic interoperability. PMID:25608216

Integrated Semantics Service Platform for the Internet of Things: A Case Study of a Smart Office

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minwoo Ryu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The Internet of Things (IoT allows machines and devices in the world to connect with each other and generate a huge amount of data, which has a great potential to provide useful knowledge across service domains. Combining the context of IoT with semantic technologies, we can build integrated semantic systems to support semantic interoperability. In this paper, we propose an integrated semantic service platform (ISSP to support ontological models in various IoT-based service domains of a smart city. In particular, we address three main problems for providing integrated semantic services together with IoT systems: semantic discovery, dynamic semantic representation, and semantic data repository for IoT resources. To show the feasibility of the ISSP, we develop a prototype service for a smart office using the ISSP, which can provide a preset, personalized office environment by interpreting user text input via a smartphone. We also discuss a scenario to show how the ISSP-based method would help build a smart city, where services in each service domain can discover and exploit IoT resources that are wanted across domains. We expect that our method could eventually contribute to providing people in a smart city with more integrated, comprehensive services based on semantic interoperability.

Integrated semantics service platform for the Internet of Things: a case study of a smart office.

Science.gov (United States)

Ryu, Minwoo; Kim, Jaeho; Yun, Jaeseok

2015-01-19

The Internet of Things (IoT) allows machines and devices in the world to connect with each other and generate a huge amount of data, which has a great potential to provide useful knowledge across service domains. Combining the context of IoT with semantic technologies, we can build integrated semantic systems to support semantic interoperability. In this paper, we propose an integrated semantic service platform (ISSP) to support ontological models in various IoT-based service domains of a smart city. In particular, we address three main problems for providing integrated semantic services together with IoT systems: semantic discovery, dynamic semantic representation, and semantic data repository for IoT resources. To show the feasibility of the ISSP, we develop a prototype service for a smart office using the ISSP, which can provide a preset, personalized office environment by interpreting user text input via a smartphone. We also discuss a scenario to show how the ISSP-based method would help build a smart city, where services in each service domain can discover and exploit IoT resources that are wanted across domains. We expect that our method could eventually contribute to providing people in a smart city with more integrated, comprehensive services based on semantic interoperability.

Maternal and child health and family planning service utilization in Guatemala: implications for service integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Seiber, Eric E; Hotchkiss, David R; Rous, Jeffrey J; Berruti, Andrés A

2005-07-01

Does the utilization of modern maternal and child health (MCH) services influence subsequent contraceptive use? The answer to this question holds important implications for proposals which advocate MCH and family planning service integration. This study uses data from the 1995/6 Guatemalan Demographic Health Survey and its 1997 Providers Census to test the influence of MCH service utilization on individual contraceptive use decisions. We use a full-information maximum likelihood regression model to control for unobserved heterogeneity. This model produces estimates of the MCH effect, independent of individual women's underlying receptiveness to MCH and contraceptive messages. The results of the analysis indicate that the intensity of MCH service use is indeed positively associated with subsequent contraceptive use among Guatemalan women, even after controlling for observed and unobserved individual- , household- , and community-level factors. Importantly, this finding holds even after controlling for the unobserved factors that 'predispose' some women to use both types of services. Simulations reveal that, for these Guatemalan women, key determinants such as age and primary schooling work indirectly through MCH service use to increase contraceptive utilization.

Integrated assessment of ecosystem services in the Czech Republic

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Frélichová, Jana; Vačkář, David; Pártl, Adam; Loučková, Blanka; Lorencová, Eliška

2014-01-01

Roč. 8, jun (2014), s. 110-117 ISSN 2212-0416 R&D Projects: GA MŠk(CZ) ED1.1.00/02.0073; GA TA ČR TD010066 Institutional support: RVO:67179843 Keywords : ecosystems * ecosystem services * integrated assessment * database * valuation * Czech Republic Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour

TPACK Competencies and Technology Integration Self-Efficacy Perceptions of Pre-Service Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Keser, Hafize; Karaoglan Yilmaz, Fatma Gizem; Yilmaz, Ramazan

2015-01-01

This study compared the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) competency of pre-service teachers with their self-efficacy perception towards technology integration, based on various variables; and the correlation between their TPACK competencies and self-efficacy perceptions towards technology integration were examined. The study…

Inter organizational System Management for integrated service delivery: an Enterprise Architecture Perspective

OpenAIRE

Elmir, Abir; Elmir, Badr; Bounabat, Bouchaib

2015-01-01

Service sharing is a prominent operating model to support business. Many large inter-organizational networks have implemented some form of value added integrated services in order to reach efficiency and to reduce costs sustainably. Coupling Service orientation with enterprise architecture paradigm is very important at improving organizational performance through business process optimization. Indeed, enterprise architecture management is increasingly discussed because of information system r...

Questioning the Role of the Indian Administrative Service in National Integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dalal Benbabaali

2008-09-01

Full Text Available After Independence, the Indian Administrative Service was expected to promote national integration, from a social as well as a spatial point of view. Yet, despite the reservation policy, this elite body lacks representativeness. The partisanship of IAS officers along caste, religious and ethnic lines has further reduced their efficiency as a binding force of the nation. Being an All-India Service, the IAS encourages the spatial mobility of its members, which is not always welcome by officers posted in far-off states or in disturbed areas. In these places, the vacancy of postings in the higher administration is a sign of desertion that is contrary to the IAS mission of territorial integration.

Assessing Patients' Preference for Integrating Herbal Medicine Within Primary Care Services in Saudi Arabia.

Science.gov (United States)

Allam, Safaa; Moharam, Maha; Alarfaj, Gada

2014-07-01

Family physician advice and follow-up may be important to reduce the negative aspects of locally marketed herbal remedies and improve the patient outcome. There is a lack of studies assessing the preference of Saudi patients for the integration of herbal medicine into primary care services. To examine the knowledge, attitudes, and practice of Saudi patients toward herbal medicine and its integration into primary care services. A cross-sectional study was conducted between February and March 2013 among adult patients attending the family medicine clinics at a primary care center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A self-administered questionnaire (27 items) was developed and administered to all patients. A total of 240 patients were included in the current analysis. The average age was 33.5 ± 9.9 years, and 61% of the patients were women. Approximately 60% of the patients were aware of herbal medicine use and its possible side effects. More than 85% of the patients believed that herbal containers should be labeled with safety information. Approximately 71% of the patients had a favorable attitude toward integrated services. Approximately 65% of the patients used herbal remedies for themselves, and 42% used them for their children. Preference for integrated services was significantly associated with female sex, better knowledge, positive attitudes toward safety and regulations, and higher level of practice. A good knowledge and a very favorable attitude toward integrating herbal medicine into primary care services were found among a group of patients attending a primary care center in Saudi Arabia. © The Author(s) 2014.

Towards a flexible service integration through separation of business rules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Asuncion, C.H.; Iacob, Maria Eugenia; van Sinderen, Marten J.

2010-01-01

Driven by dynamic market demands, enterprises are continuously exploring collaborations with others to add value to their services and seize new market opportunities. Achieving enterprise collaboration is facilitated by Enterprise Application Integration and Business-to-Business approaches that

Gender Integration in Basic Training: The Services Are Using a Variety of Approaches

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

1997-01-01

...) the extent to which the services have gender integrated basic training and (2) the performance of men and women in gender integrated basic training compared with that of men and women whose training is segregated...

Pre-Service Teachers' Self-Efficacy Beliefs towards Educational Technologies Integration in Tanzania

Science.gov (United States)

Raphael, Christina; Mtebe, Joel S.

2017-01-01

This study examines pre-service teachers' (N = 386) self-efficacy beliefs towards educational technologies integration in the classroom at the two colleges in Tanzania that prepare secondary education teachers. Using regression analysis, the study found out that the determinants of self-efficacy beliefs among pre-service teachers towards…

First, keep it safe: Integration of a complementary medicine service within a hospital.

Science.gov (United States)

Schiff, Elad; Levy, Ilana; Arnon, Zahi; Ben-Arye, Eran; Attias, Samuel

2018-05-01

This paper sought to explore risk/safety considerations associated with the integration of a complementary medicine (CM) service within a public academic medical centre in Israel. We reviewed various sources pertaining to the CM service (interviews with CM staff, patients' electronic charts, service guidelines, correspondence with hospital administration) and conducted a thematic analysis to evaluate safety-related incidents during the 7 years of operation. In addition, we systematically assessed the charts for reports of treatment-associated adverse effects, which were documented in an obligatory field on treatment reports. After reviewing transcripts of interviews with 12 CM practitioners and with the director and vice-director of the CM service as well as transcripts of 8560 consultations that included 7383 treatments, we categorised 3 major domains of CM safety management: (i) prevention of safety-related incidents by appropriate selection of CM practitioners and modalities, (ii) actual adverse incidents and (iii) prevention of their recurrence using both hospital and CM service safety protocols. CM staff reported 5 categories of adverse incidents, most of which were minor. Twenty-nine adverse incidents were documented in the 7383 treatment sessions (0.4%). Safety management needs to be addressed both before introducing CM services in hospitals and throughout their integration. Important considerations for the safe integration of CM practices in the hospital include communication between CM and conventional practitioners, adherence to hospital safety rules, implementing a systematic approach for detecting and reporting safety-related incidents and continuous adaptation of the CM service safety protocols. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Academic-Service Partnerships in Nursing: An Integrative Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Judy A. Beal

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This integrative review summarizes currently available evidence on academic-service partnerships in the profession of nursing. More than 300 articles, published primarily in refereed journals, were accessed. Articles (110 were included in this review as they presented detailed and substantive information about any aspect of a nursing academic-service partnership. The majority were anecdotal in nature. Topics clustered around the following categories: pre-requisites for successful partnerships, benefits of partnerships, types of partnerships, and workforce development with its themes of academic-practice progression and educational re-design. Many examples of partnerships between academic and service settings were thoroughly described and best practices suggested, most often, however, without formal evaluation of outcomes. Nursing leaders in both settings have a long tradition of partnering with very little replicable evidence to support their efforts. It is critical that future initiatives evaluate the effectiveness of these partnerships, not only to ensure quality of patient outcomes but also to maximize efforts at building capacity for tomorrow's workforce.

Academic-service partnerships in nursing: an integrative review.

Science.gov (United States)

Beal, Judy A

2012-01-01

This integrative review summarizes currently available evidence on academic-service partnerships in the profession of nursing. More than 300 articles, published primarily in refereed journals, were accessed. Articles (110) were included in this review as they presented detailed and substantive information about any aspect of a nursing academic-service partnership. The majority were anecdotal in nature. Topics clustered around the following categories: pre-requisites for successful partnerships, benefits of partnerships, types of partnerships, and workforce development with its themes of academic-practice progression and educational re-design. Many examples of partnerships between academic and service settings were thoroughly described and best practices suggested, most often, however, without formal evaluation of outcomes. Nursing leaders in both settings have a long tradition of partnering with very little replicable evidence to support their efforts. It is critical that future initiatives evaluate the effectiveness of these partnerships, not only to ensure quality of patient outcomes but also to maximize efforts at building capacity for tomorrow's workforce.

Improving the Work-Integrated Learning Experience through a Third-Party Advisory Service

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Denise; Ferns, Sonia; Rowbottom, David; Mclaren, Diane

2017-01-01

This study trialled a Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) Advisory Service, provided by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia (CCIWA) in collaboration with four WA universities. The service was established to broker relationships between industry and universities, support employers engaged in WIL and enhance the WIL experience for…

Throughput analysis of the IEEE 802.4 token bus standard under heavy load

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Joseph; Tobagi, Fouad

1987-01-01

It has become clear in the last few years that there is a trend towards integrated digital services. Parallel to the development of public Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is service integration in the local area (e.g., a campus, a building, an aircraft). The types of services to be integrated depend very much on the specific local environment. However, applications tend to generate data traffic belonging to one of two classes. According to IEEE 802.4 terminology, the first major class of traffic is termed synchronous, such as packetized voice and data generated from other applications with real-time constraints, and the second class is called asynchronous which includes most computer data traffic such as file transfer or facsimile. The IEEE 802.4 token bus protocol which was designed to support both synchronous and asynchronous traffic is examined. The protocol is basically a timer-controlled token bus access scheme. By a suitable choice of the design parameters, it can be shown that access delay is bounded for synchronous traffic. As well, the bandwidth allocated to asynchronous traffic can be controlled. A throughput analysis of the protocol under heavy load with constant channel occupation of synchronous traffic and constant token-passing times is presented.

Child welfare organizations: Do specialization and service integration impact placement decisions?

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Carrie; Fluke, John; Fallon, Barbara; Mishna, Faye; Decker Pierce, Barbara

2018-02-01

The objective of this study was to contribute to the understanding of the child welfare organization by testing the hypothesis that the characteristics of organizations influence decisions made by child protection staff for vulnerable children. The influence of two aspects of organizational structure on the decision to place a child in out-of-home care were examined: service integration and worker specialization. A theoretical framework that integrated the Decision-Making Ecology Framework (Baumann et al., 2011) and Yoo et al. (2007) conceptual framework of organizational constructs as predictors of service effectiveness was tested. Secondary data analysis of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect - 2013 (OIS-2013) was conducted. A subsample of 4949 investigations from 16 agencies was included in this study. Given the nested structure of the data, multi-level modelling was used to test the relative contribution of case and organizational factors to the decision to place. Despite the reported differences among child welfare organizations and research that has demonstrated variance in the placement decision as a result of organizational factors, the structure of the organization (i.e., worker specialization and service integration) showed no predictive power in the final models. The lack of variance may be explained by the relatively low frequency of placements during the investigation phase of service, the hierarchical impact of the factors of the DME and the limited information available regarding the structure of child welfare organizations in Ontario. Suggestions for future research are provided. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integration of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission into maternal health services in Senegal.

Science.gov (United States)

Cisse, C

2017-06-01

The objective of this study was to assess the level of integration of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) in facilities providing services for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) and reproductive health (RH) in Senegal. The survey, conducted from August through November, 2014, comprised five parts : a literature review to assess the place of this integration in the health policies, standards, and protocols in effect in Senegal; an analysis by direct observation of attitudes and practices of 25 healthcare providers at 5 randomly-selected obstetrics and gynecology departments representative of different levels of the health pyramid; a questionnaire evaluating knowledge and attitudes of 10 providers about the integration of PMTCT services into MNCH/RH facilities; interviews to collect the opinions of 70 clients, including 16 HIV-positive, about the quality of PMTCT services they received; and a questionnaire evaluating knowledge and opinions of 14 policy-makers/managers of health programs focusing on mothers and children about this integration. The literature review revealed several constraints impeding this integration : the policy documents, standards, and protocols of each of the programs involved do not clearly indicate the modalities of this integration; the programs are housed in two different divisions while the national Program against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus reports directly to the Prime Minister; program operations remains generally vertical; the resources for the different programs are not sufficiently shared; there is no integrated training module covering integrated management of pregnancy and delivery; and supervision for each of the different programs is organized separately.The observation of the providers supporting women during pregnancy, during childbirth, and in the postpartum period, showed an effort to integrate PMTCT into the MNCH/RH services delivered daily to clients. But this desire is hampered by many

Development of Integrated Public Administration Custom Services in Hungary.

Science.gov (United States)

Laki, Tamas

2015-01-01

The paper is a case-study introducing a national project in Hungary establishing a countrywide public administration customer service system where accessibility was a key issue. Starting from the concept the paper describes the methods and organisational background how accessible design was integrated in the planning method and gives a feedback of site experiences.

Interconnection of Broadband Islands via Satellite-Experiments on the Race II Catalyst Project

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Sun, Z

1996-01-01

.... The purpose of the project was to develop an ATM satellite link for the future B-ISDN services, particularly for the interconnections of the ATM testbeds which are in the form of broadband islands...

The EPOS Implementation Phase: building thematic and integrated services for solid Earth sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Cocco, Massimo; Epos Consortium, the

2015-04-01

integrating RI elements. This integration requires a significant coordination between, among others, disciplinary (thematic) communities, national RIs policies and initiatives, as well as geo- and IT-scientists. The RIs that EPOS is coordinating include: i) regionally-distributed geophysical observing systems (seismological and geodetic networks); ii) local observatories (including geomagnetic, near-fault and volcano observatories); iii) analytical and experimental laboratories; iv) integrated satellite data and geological information services v) new services for natural and anthropogenic hazards. Here we present the successful story of the EPOS Preparatory Phase and the progress towards the implementation of both integrated core services (ICS) and thematic core services (TCS) for the different communities participating to the integration plan. We aim to discuss the achieved results and the approach followed to design the implementation phase. The goal is to present and discuss the strategies adopted to foster the implementation of TCS, clarifying their crucial role as domain-specific service hubs for coordinating and harmonizing national resources/plans with the European dimension of EPOS, and their integration to develop the new ICS. We will present the prototype of the ICS central hub as a key contribution for providing multidisciplinary services for solid Earth sciences as well as the glue to keep ICT aspects integrated and rationalized across EPOS. Finally, we will discuss the well-defined role of the EPOS-ERIC Headquarter to coordinate and harmonize national RIs and EPOS services (through ICS and TCS) looking for an effective commitment by national governments. It will be an important and timely opportunity to discuss the EPOS roadmap toward the operation of the novel multidisciplinary platform for discoveries to foster scientific excellence in solid Earth sciences.

Integrating HIV & AIDS education in pre-service mathematics education for social justice

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linda van Laren

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Since 1999, many South African education policy documents have mandated integration of HIV & AIDS education in learning areas/disciplines. Policy document research has shown that although South African politicians and managers have produced volumes of eloquent and compelling legislation regarding provision for HIV & AIDS education, little of this is translated into action. The impact of HIV & AIDS permeates the social, economic and political arenas in South Africa. Integration of HIV & AIDS education across disciplines can serve as a strategy to further the ideals of social justice. This paper focuses on how integration in the teaching and learning of Mathematics Education provides opportunities to take action for social justice. The inquiry explores the following question: How can the myth that there is 'nothing we can do' about HIV & AIDS, which is linked to social justice issues, be addressed through integration of HIV & AIDS education in Mathematics pre-service teacher education? Drawing on self-study, the work of a Mathematics teacher educator who worked with pre-service teachers to integrate HIV & AIDS education at a higher education institution is described. By considering integration of HIV & AIDS education in Mathematics Education and taking action it is possible to develop strategies which directly relate to social justice.

Organizational change for services integration in public human service organizations: experiences in seven counties.

Science.gov (United States)

Packard, Thomas; Patti, Rino; Daly, Donna; Tucker-Tatlow, Jennifer

2012-01-01

This is a study of organizational change strategies employed in seven county human service agencies to improve the coordination of services through the structural integration of previously free standing organizations or the development of voluntary interagency collaborative service delivery systems. The central question involves the identification of organizational change tactics which contributed to the success of the organizational change initiatives. The literature on organizational change is reviewed, with particular attention to a framework developed by Fernandez and Rainey based on their extensive review and synthesis of the research on successful change strategies in the public and business sectors. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered from over 250 individuals and from agency documents. Findings are compared with the success factors identified by Fernandez and Rainey, and refinements to their propositions are suggested. More precise methods for measuring successful and unsuccessful change initiatives are suggested. Implications for practice and research are presented.

Jordanian Pre-Service Teachers' and Technology Integration: A Human Resource Development Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Ruz, Jamal Abu; Khasawneh, Samer

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to test a model in which technology integration of pre-service teachers was predicted by a number of university-based and school-based factors. Initially, factors affecting technology integration were identified, and a research-based path model was developed to explain causal relationships between these factors. The…

Developing integrated health and social care services for older persons in Europe.

Science.gov (United States)

Leichsenring, Kai

2004-01-01

This paper is to distribute first results of the EU Fifth Framework Project 'Providing integrated health and social care for older persons-issues, problems and solutions' (PROCARE-http://www.euro.centre.org/procare/). The project's first phase was to identify different approaches to integration as well as structural, organisational, economic and social-cultural factors and actors that constitute integrated and sustainable care systems. It also served to retrieve a number of experiences, model ways of working and demonstration projects in the participating countries which are currently being analysed in order to learn from success-or failure-and to develop policy recommendations for the local, national and European level. The paper draws on existing definitions of integrated care in various countries and by various scholars. Given the context of an international comparative study it tries to avoid providing a single, ready-made definition but underlines the role of social care as part and parcel of this type of integrated care in the participating countries. The paper is based on national reports from researchers representing ten organisations (university institutes, consultancy firms, research institutes, the public and the NGO sector) from 9 European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK. Literature reviews made intensive use of grey literature and evaluation studies in the context of at least five model ways of working in each country. As a result of the cross-national overview an attempt to classify different approaches and definitions is made and indicators of relative importance of the different instruments used in integrating health and social care services are provided. The cross-national overview shows that issues concerning co-ordination and integration of services are high on the agenda in most countries. Depending on the state of service development, various approaches and instruments can be

Research into the influence of internal interdepartmental integration on service innovation and customer loyalty

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Jui-Chan; Wu, Tzu-Jung; Wen, Hao-Ming; Hsin-Fei, Wu; Hairui, Ji

2017-06-01

It is the most important for the company to improve customer value and customer loyalty through service innovation. However, at present, only researches related to organizations or consumer behaviors are conducted, there is rare research into the combination between organization level and consumer behavior, and this research tries to explore this aspect, which is the motivation and contribution of this research. This research aims to explore the relationship between "Interdepartmental Integration", "Service Innovation" and "Customer Loyalty", according to the analysis results, the relationship between "interdepartmental integration and service innovation" and "service innovation and customer loyalty" has a low positive correlation and it reaches significant level; it shows the relationship between "interdepartmental interaction and progressive innovation" and "interdepartmental collaboration and fundamental innovation" is significant.

General practice integration in Australia. Primary health services provider and consumer perceptions of barriers and solutions.

Science.gov (United States)

Appleby, N J; Dunt, D; Southern, D M; Young, D

1999-08-01

To identify practical examples of barriers and possible solutions to improve general practice integration with other health service providers. Twelve focus groups, including one conducted by teleconference, were held across Australia with GPs and non GP primary health service providers between May and September, 1996. Focus groups were embedded within concept mapping sessions, which were used to conceptually explore the meaning of integration in general practice. Data coding, organising and analysis were based on the techniques documented by Huberman and Miles. Barriers to integration were perceived to be principally due to the role and territory disputes between the different levels of government and their services, the manner in which the GP's role is currently defined, and the system of GP remuneration. Suggestions on ways to improve integration involved two types of strategies. The first involves initiatives implemented 'top down' through major government reform to service structures, including the expansion of the role of divisions of general practice, and structural changes to the GP remuneration systems. The second type of strategy suggested involves initiatives implemented from the 'bottom up' involving services such as hospitals (e.g. additional GP liaison positions) and the use of information technology to link services and share appropriate patient data. The findings support the need for further research and evaluation of initiatives aimed at achieving general practice integration at a systems level. There is little evidence to suggest which types of initiatives improve integration. However, general practice has been placed in the centre of the health care debate and is likely to remain central to the success of such initiatives. Clarification of the future role and authority of general practice will therefore be required if such integrative strategies are to be successful at a wider health system level.

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS): Integrating Thematic Services for Solid Earth Science

Science.gov (United States)

Atakan, Kuvvet; Bailo, Daniele; Consortium, Epos

2016-04-01

The mission of EPOS is to monitor and understand the dynamic and complex Earth system by relying on new e-science opportunities and integrating diverse and advanced Research Infrastructures in Europe for solid Earth Science. EPOS will enable innovative multidisciplinary research for a better understanding of the Earth's physical and chemical processes that control earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ground instability and tsunami as well as the processes driving tectonics and Earth's surface dynamics. Through integration of data, models and facilities EPOS will allow the Earth Science community to make a step change in developing new concepts and tools for key answers to scientific and socio-economic questions concerning geo-hazards and geo-resources as well as Earth sciences applications to the environment and to human welfare. EPOS, during its Implementation Phase (EPOS-IP), will integrate multidisciplinary data into a single e-infrastructure. Multidisciplinary data are organized and governed by the Thematic Core Services (TCS) and are driven by various scientific communities encompassing a wide spectrum of Earth science disciplines. These include Data, Data-products, Services and Software (DDSS), from seismology, near fault observatories, geodetic observations, volcano observations, satellite observations, geomagnetic observations, as well as data from various anthropogenic hazard episodes, geological information and modelling. In addition, transnational access to multi-scale laboratories and geo-energy test-beds for low-carbon energy will be provided. TCS DDSS will be integrated into Integrated Core Services (ICS), a platform that will ensure their interoperability and access to these services by the scientific community as well as other users within the society. This requires dedicated tasks for interactions with the various TCS-WPs, as well as the various distributed ICS (ICS-Ds), such as High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities, large scale data storage

Implementing PEHR: Design and Integration of a Consent Creator Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Weiss, Nicolas; Aguduri, Lakshmi S; Yüksekogul, Nilay; Schreiweis, Björn; Brandner, Antje; Bronsch, Tobias; Pensold, Peter; Stein, Katharina E; Bergh, Björn; Heinze, Oliver

2016-01-01

Giving the patient full control over his medical data electronically remains one of the most discussed topics in healthcare today. The INFOPAT project in the Rhine-Neckar region focuses on a personal cross-enterprise electronic health record (PEHR) in which the patient plays a major role. Thus, he should be provided with the possibility of granting access to his medical data which could be realized using a consent creator service. This paper presents a user interface concept for such a service as well as aspects for the technical implementation. In addition, a pattern for integrating the service into an existing IHE based infrastructure is shown. These concepts could be further adapted for improving patient empowerment in health care projects.

Optimation of Operation System Integration between Main and Feeder Public Transport (Case Study: Trans Jakarta-Kopaja Bus Services)

Science.gov (United States)

Miharja, M.; Priadi, Y. N.

2018-05-01

Promoting a better public transport is a key strategy to cope with urban transport problems which are mostly caused by a huge private vehicle usage. A better public transport service quality not only focuses on one type of public transport mode, but also concerns on inter modes service integration. Fragmented inter mode public transport service leads to a longer trip chain as well as average travel time which would result in its failure to compete with a private vehicle. This paper examines the optimation process of operation system integration between Trans Jakarta Bus as the main public transport mode and Kopaja Bus as feeder public transport service in Jakarta. Using scoring-interview method combined with standard parameters in operation system integration, this paper identifies the key factors that determine the success of the two public transport operation system integrations. The study found that some key integration parameters, such as the cancellation of “system setoran”, passenger get in-get out at official stop points, and systematic payment, positively contribute to a better service integration. However, some parameters such as fine system, time and changing point reliability, and information system reliability are among those which need improvement. These findings are very useful for the authority to set the right strategy to improve operation system integration between Trans Jakarta and Kopaja Bus services.

Using registries to integrate bioinformatics tools and services into workbench environments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ménager, Hervé; Kalaš, Matúš; Rapacki, Kristoffer

2016-01-01

The diversity and complexity of bioinformatics resources presents significant challenges to their localisation, deployment and use, creating a need for reliable systems that address these issues. Meanwhile, users demand increasingly usable and integrated ways to access and analyse data, especially......, a software component that will ease the integration of bioinformatics resources in a workbench environment, using their description provided by the existing ELIXIR Tools and Data Services Registry....

MAKOCI: A WEB PORTAL FOR INTEGRATING AND SHARING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SERVICES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chin-Te Jung

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The lack of integration and communication of various geographic information services (GI services has resulted in many duplication collection of earth observation data, and challenges of semantic interoperability. This paper proposes an ontology-based multi-agents platform, called MAKOCI (multi-agent knowledge oriented cyberinfrastructure, which acts as GI service one stop to manage, publish, share, and discover GI services semantically. By ontologies, formal meanings of concepts are defined to annotate and discover GI services on a conceptual level for semantic interoperability. With the assistance of multi-agents, the processes in MAKOCI can be divided into various modules and be communicated based on the same semantics in ontologies. A prototype was implemented to test MAKOCI. Finally, we conclude the advantages and disadvantages of MAKOCI and point out several future works.

Social Cognitive Predictors of Pre-Service Teachers' Technology Integration Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Perkmen, Serkan; Pamuk, Sonmez

2011-01-01

The main objective of the study was to examine interrelationships among social cognitive variables (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and performance goals) and their role in predicting pre-service teachers' technology integration performance. Although researchers have examined the role of these variables in the teacher-education context, the…

Building Thematic and Integrated Services for European Solid Earth Sciences: the EPOS Integrated Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, M.; Cocco, M.

2017-12-01

EPOS (European Plate Observing System) has been designed with the vision of creating a pan-European infrastructure for solid Earth science to support a safe and sustainable society. In accordance with this scientific vision, the EPOS mission is to integrate the diverse and advanced European Research Infrastructures for solid Earth science relying on new e-science opportunities to monitor and unravel the dynamic and complex Earth System. EPOS will enable innovative multidisciplinary research for a better understanding of the Earth's physical and chemical processes that control earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ground instability and tsunami as well as the processes driving tectonics and Earth's surface dynamics. To accomplish its mission, EPOS is engaging different stakeholders, to allow the Earth sciences to open new horizons in our understanding of the planet. EPOS also aims at contributing to prepare society for geo-hazards and to responsibly manage the exploitation of geo-resources. Through integration of data, models and facilities, EPOS will allow the Earth science community to make a step change in developing new concepts and tools for key answers to scientific and socio-economic questions concerning geo-hazards and geo-resources as well as Earth sciences applications to the environment and human welfare. The research infrastructures (RIs) that EPOS is coordinating include: i) distributed geophysical observing systems (seismological and geodetic networks); ii) local observatories (including geomagnetic, near-fault and volcano observatories); iii) analytical and experimental laboratories; iv) integrated satellite data and geological information services; v) new services for natural and anthropogenic hazards; vi) access to geo-energy test beds. Here we present the activities planned for the implementation phase focusing on the TCS, the ICS and on their interoperability. We will discuss the data, data-products, software and services (DDSS) presently under

Proposal of a service delivery integration index of home care for older persons: application in several European cities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean-Claude Henrard

2006-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose: To propose an integration index of home care delivery to older persons, to study its validity and to apply it to home care services of European cities. Theory: Home care delivery integration was based on two dimensions referring to process-centred integration and organisational structure approach. Method: Items considered as part of both dimensions according to an expert consensus (face validity were extracted from a standardised questionnaire used in “Aged in Home care” (AdHoc study to capture basic characteristics of home care services. Their summation leads to a services' delivery integration index. This index was applied to AdHoc services. A factor analysis was computed in order to empirically test the validity of the theoretical constructs. The plot of the settings was performed. Results: Application of the index ranks home care services in four groups according to their score. Factor analysis identifies a first factor which opposes working arrangement within service to organisational structure bringing together provisions for social care. A second factor corresponds to basic nursing care and therapies. Internal consistency for those three domains ranges from 0.78 to 0.93. When plotting the different settings different models of service delivery appear. Conclusion: The proposed index shows that behind a total score several models of care delivery are hidden. Comparison of service delivery integration should take into account this heterogeneity.

Integration of distributed plant lifecycle data using ISO 15926 and Web services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Byung Chul; Teijgeler, Hans; Mun, Duhwan; Han, Soonhung

2011-01-01

Highlights: → The ISO 15926 parts that provide implementation methods are under development. → A prototype of an ISO 15926-based data repository called a facade was implemented. → The prototype facade has the advantages of data interoperability and integration. → These are obtained through the features of ISO 15926 and Web services. - Abstract: Considering the financial, safety, and environmental risks related to industrial installations, it is of paramount importance that all relevant lifecycle information is readily available. Parts of this lifecycle information are stored in a plethora of computer systems, often scattered around the world and in many native formats and languages. These parts can create a complete, holistic set of lifecycle data only when they are integrated together. At present, no software is available that can integrate these parts into one coherent, distributed, and up-to-date set. The ISO 15926 standard has been developed, and in part is still under development, to overcome this problem. In this paper, the authors discuss a prototype of an ISO 15926-based data repository called a facade, and its Web services are implemented for storing the equipment data of a nuclear power plant and servicing the data to interested organizations. This prototype is for a proof-of-concept study regarding the ISO 15926 parts that are currently under development and that are expected to provide implementation methods for the integration of distributed plant systems.

Hybrid High-Impact Pedagogies: Integrating Service-Learning with Three Other High-Impact Pedagogies

Science.gov (United States)

Bringle, Robert G.

2017-01-01

This article proposes enhancing student learning through civic engagement by considering the advantages of integrating service-learning with study away, research, and internships and pre-professional courses into first-order, second-order, and third-order hybrid high-impact pedagogies. Service-learning contributes numerous attributes to the other…

Implementation of Integrated Service Networks under the Quebec Mental Health Reform: Facilitators and Barriers associated with Different Territorial Profiles.

Science.gov (United States)

Fleury, Marie-Josée; Grenier, Guy; Vallée, Catherine; Aubé, Denise; Farand, Lambert

2017-03-10

This study evaluates implementation of the Quebec Mental Health Reform (2005-2015), which promoted the development of integrated service networks, in 11 local service networks organized into four territorial groups according to socio-demographic characteristics and mental health services offered. Data were collected from documents concerning networks; structured questionnaires completed by 90 managers and by 16 respondent-psychiatrists; and semi-structured interviews with 102 network stakeholders. Factors associated with implementation and integration were organized according to: 1) reform characteristics; 2) implementation context; 3) organizational characteristics; and 4) integration strategies. While local networks were in a process of development and expansion, none were fully integrated at the time of the study. Facilitators and barriers to implementation and integration were primarily associated with organizational characteristics. Integration was best achieved in larger networks including a general hospital with a psychiatric department, followed by networks with a psychiatric hospital. Formalized integration strategies such as service agreements, liaison officers, and joint training reduced some barriers to implementation in networks experiencing less favourable conditions. Strategies for the implementation of healthcare reform and integrated service networks should include sustained support and training in best-practices, adequate performance indicators and resources, formalized integration strategies to improve network coordination and suitable initiatives to promote staff retention.

A Case Study - On Patient Empowerment and Integration of Telemedicine to National Healthcare Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Urazimbetova, Surayya

Patient empowerment in the digitalized healthcare can be supported by means of telemedicine. As opposed to Electronic Patient Records developed by a few large business suppliers for healthcare professionals, telemedical applications include innovative solutions of small-medium size suppliers...... and are targeted at specific groups of patients (e.g., hip operated or dermatology patients) and their care network. Based on an integration experiment we argue that in order to support the national visions for patient empowerment and connectedness of healthcare at the same time, it is necessary to achieve...... the integration of telemedicine to the national healthcare services on a business logic (functional) integration level. In this paper, (1) we identify the lack of business logic (functional) level integration opportunities for patient oriented telemedical applications with national healthcare services; (2) we...

Towards the integration of StoRM on Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Andreozzi, S; Magnoni, L; Zappi, R [INFN-CNAF, Viale Carlo Berti Pichat, 6/2, 40127, Bologna (Italy)], E-mail: sergio.andreozzi@cnaf.infn.it, E-mail: luca.magnoni@cnaf.infn.it, E-mail: riccardo.zappi@cnaf.infn.it

2008-07-15

In Grid systems, a core resource being shared among geographically-dispersed communities of users is the storage. For this resource, a standard interface specification (Storage Resource Management or SRM) was defined and is being evolved in the context of the Open Grid Forum. By implementing this interface, all storage resources part of a Grid could be managed in an homogenous fashion. In this work, we consider the extension of StoRM (STOrage Resource Manager, an implementation of SRM v2.2) in order to integrate a new type of storage resource: the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Amazon S3 is a simple Web services interface offering access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of Web sites. By performing this integration, we offer to the Grid community the capability to manage and access an incredible amount of storage resources freeing them from considering the costs associated with server maintenance, or whether they have enough storage available. The characteristics of StoRM are suitable for a smooth integration with Amazon S3. In particular, StoRM is designed to be easily adapted to the underlying storage resource via a plug-in mechanism, therefore a new plugin for integration with the Amazon S3 Web Service will be written. As regards the access policies, StoRM translates the Grid authorization rules into the Amazon S3 ones and applies them to the Amazon Web Services identity.

Towards the integration of StoRM on Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andreozzi, S; Magnoni, L; Zappi, R

2008-01-01

In Grid systems, a core resource being shared among geographically-dispersed communities of users is the storage. For this resource, a standard interface specification (Storage Resource Management or SRM) was defined and is being evolved in the context of the Open Grid Forum. By implementing this interface, all storage resources part of a Grid could be managed in an homogenous fashion. In this work, we consider the extension of StoRM (STOrage Resource Manager, an implementation of SRM v2.2) in order to integrate a new type of storage resource: the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Amazon S3 is a simple Web services interface offering access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of Web sites. By performing this integration, we offer to the Grid community the capability to manage and access an incredible amount of storage resources freeing them from considering the costs associated with server maintenance, or whether they have enough storage available. The characteristics of StoRM are suitable for a smooth integration with Amazon S3. In particular, StoRM is designed to be easily adapted to the underlying storage resource via a plug-in mechanism, therefore a new plugin for integration with the Amazon S3 Web Service will be written. As regards the access policies, StoRM translates the Grid authorization rules into the Amazon S3 ones and applies them to the Amazon Web Services identity

Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Integration Services

CERN Document Server

Knight, Brian; Moss, Jessica M; Davis, Mike; Rock, Chris

2012-01-01

An in-depth look at the radical changes to the newest release of SISS Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Integration Services (SISS) builds on the revolutionary database product suite first introduced in 2005. With this crucial resource, you will explore how this newest release serves as a powerful tool for performing extraction, transformation, and load operations (ETL). A team of SQL Server experts deciphers this complex topic and provides detailed coverage of the new features of the 2012 product release. In addition to technical updates and additions, the authors present you with a new set of SISS b

Developing integrated health and social care services for older persons in Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kai Leichsenring

2004-09-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This paper is to distribute first results of the EU Fifth Framework Project ‘Providing integrated health and social care for older persons—issues, problems and solutions’ (PROCARE—http://www.euro.centre.org/procare/. The project's first phase was to identify different approaches to integration as well as structural, organisational, economic and social-cultural factors and actors that constitute integrated and sustainable care systems. It also served to retrieve a number of experiences, model ways of working and demonstration projects in the participating countries which are currently being analysed in order to learn from success—or failure—and to develop policy recommendations for the local, national and European level. Theory: The paper draws on existing definitions of integrated care in various countries and by various scholars. Given the context of an international comparative study it tries to avoid providing a single, ready-made definition but underlines the role of social care as part and parcel of this type of integrated care in the participating countries. Methods: The paper is based on national reports from researchers representing ten organisations (university institutes, consultancy firms, research institutes, the public and the NGO sector from 9 European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK. Literature reviews made intensive use of grey literature and evaluation studies in the context of at least five model ways of working in each country. Results: As a result of the cross-national overview an attempt to classify different approaches and definitions is made and indicators of relative importance of the different instruments used in integrating health and social care services are provided. Conclusions: The cross-national overview shows that issues concerning co-ordination and integration of services are high on the agenda in most countries. Depending on

Profile of Metacognition of Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers in Understanding the Concept of Integral Calculus with Regard Gender Differences

Science.gov (United States)

Misu, L.; Budayasa, I. K.; Lukito, A.

2018-01-01

This research is to describe metacognition profile of female and male mathematics’ pre-service teachers in understanding the concept of integral calculus. The subjects of this study are one female and 1 male mathematics’ pre-service teachers who have studied integral calculus. This research type is an explorative study with the qualitative approach. The main data collection of this research was obtained by using Interview technique. In addition, there are supporting data which is the result of the written work of research subjects (SP) in understanding the question of integral calculus. The results of this study are as follows: There is a difference in metacognition profiles between male and female mathematics’ pre-service teachers in the understanding concept of integral calculus in the interpreting category, especially the definite integral concept. While in the category of exemplifying, there is no difference in metacognition profile between male and female mathematics’ pre-service teachers either the definite integral concept and the indefinite integral concept.

Multi-actor involvement for integrating ecosystem services in strategic environmental assessment of spatial plans

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rozas-Vásquez, Daniel; Fürst, Christine; Geneletti, Davide; Muñoz, Francisco

2017-01-01

Integrating an ecosystem services (ES) approach into Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of spatial plans potentially enhances the consideration of the value of nature in decision making and policy processes. However, there is increasing concern about the institutional context and a lack of a common understanding of SEA and ecosystem services for adopting them as an integrated framework. This paper addresses this concern by analysing the current understanding and network relations in a multi-actor arrangement as a first step towards a successful integration of ES in SEA and spatial planning. Our analysis focuses on a case study in Chile, where we administered a questionnaire survey to some of the main actors involved in the spatial planning process. The questionnaire focused on issues such as network relations among actors and on conceptual understanding, perceptions and challenges for integrating ES in SEA and spatial planning, knowledge on methodological approaches, and the connections and gaps in the science-policy interface. Our findings suggest that a common understanding of SEA and especially of ES in a context of multiple actors is still at an initial stage in Chile. Additionally, the lack of institutional guidelines and methodological support is considered the main challenge for integration. We conclude that preconditions exist in Chile for integrating ES in SEA for spatial planning, but they strongly depend on appropriate governance schemes that promote a close science-policy interaction, as well as collaborative work and learning. - Highlights: • Linking ecosystem services in SEA is an effective framework for sustainability. • Multi-actor understanding and networks in ecosystem services and SEA were analyzed. • Understanding of SEA and especially of ES is still in an initial stage in Chile. • A lack of institutional guidelines is one of the key challenges for this link.

Multi-actor involvement for integrating ecosystem services in strategic environmental assessment of spatial plans

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rozas-Vásquez, Daniel, E-mail: danielrozas@gmail.com [Center for Development Research, Dept. Ecology and Natural Resources Management, University of Bonn, Walter Flex Str. 3, 53113 Bonn (Germany); Laboratorio de Planificación Territorial, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Rudecindo ortega, 02950 Temuco (Chile); Fürst, Christine [Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Dept. Natural Sciences III, Institute for Geosciences and Geography, Von Seckendorff-Platz 4, 06120 Halle-Saale (Germany); Geneletti, Davide [University of Trento, Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, via Mesiano, 77, Trento 38123 (Italy); Muñoz, Francisco [Laboratorio de Planificación Territorial, Universidad Católica de Temuco, Rudecindo ortega, 02950 Temuco (Chile)

2017-01-15

Integrating an ecosystem services (ES) approach into Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of spatial plans potentially enhances the consideration of the value of nature in decision making and policy processes. However, there is increasing concern about the institutional context and a lack of a common understanding of SEA and ecosystem services for adopting them as an integrated framework. This paper addresses this concern by analysing the current understanding and network relations in a multi-actor arrangement as a first step towards a successful integration of ES in SEA and spatial planning. Our analysis focuses on a case study in Chile, where we administered a questionnaire survey to some of the main actors involved in the spatial planning process. The questionnaire focused on issues such as network relations among actors and on conceptual understanding, perceptions and challenges for integrating ES in SEA and spatial planning, knowledge on methodological approaches, and the connections and gaps in the science-policy interface. Our findings suggest that a common understanding of SEA and especially of ES in a context of multiple actors is still at an initial stage in Chile. Additionally, the lack of institutional guidelines and methodological support is considered the main challenge for integration. We conclude that preconditions exist in Chile for integrating ES in SEA for spatial planning, but they strongly depend on appropriate governance schemes that promote a close science-policy interaction, as well as collaborative work and learning. - Highlights: • Linking ecosystem services in SEA is an effective framework for sustainability. • Multi-actor understanding and networks in ecosystem services and SEA were analyzed. • Understanding of SEA and especially of ES is still in an initial stage in Chile. • A lack of institutional guidelines is one of the key challenges for this link.

Use of comparative data for integrated cancer services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

McCarthy Mark

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Comparative data are an important resource for management of integrated care. In 2001, the English Department of Health created 34 cancer networks, broadly serving populations of half to three million people, to coordinate cancer services across providers. We have investigated how national and regional routine data are used by the cancer network management teams. Methods Telephone interviews using a standardised semi-structured questionnaire were conducted with 68 participants in 29 cancer network teams. Replies were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Results While most network teams had a formal information strategy, data were used ad hoc more than regularly, and were not thought to be as influential in network decision making as other sources of information. Data collection was more prominent in information strategies than data use. Perceptions of data usefulness were mixed and there were worries over data quality, relevance, and potential misuse. Participants were receptive to the idea of a new limited dataset collating comparative data from currently available routine data sources. Few network structural factors were associated with data use, perceptions of current data, or receptivity to a new dataset. Conclusion Comparative data are underused for managing integrated cancer services in England. Managers would welcome more comparative data, but also desired data to be relevant, quality assured and contextualised, and for the teams to be better resourced for data use.

‘Trust and teamwork matter’: Community health workers' experiences in integrated service delivery in India

Science.gov (United States)

Mishra, Arima

2014-01-01

A comprehensive and integrated approach to strengthen primary health care has been the major thrust of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) that was launched in 2005 to revamp India's rural public health system. Though the logic of horizontal and integrated health care to strengthen health systems has long been acknowledged at policy level, empirical evidence on how such integration operates is rare. Based on recent (2011–2012) ethnographic fieldwork in Odisha, India, this article discusses community health workers' experiences in integrated service delivery through village-level outreach sessions within the NRHM. It shows that for health workers, the notion of integration goes well beyond a technical lens of mixing different health services. Crucially, they perceive ‘teamwork’ and ‘building trust with the community’ (beyond trust in health services) to be critical components of their practice. However, the comprehensive NRHM primary health care ideology – which the health workers espouse – is in constant tension with the exigencies of narrow indicators of health system performance. Our ethnography shows how monitoring mechanisms, the institutionalised privileging of statistical evidence over field-based knowledge and the highly hierarchical health bureaucratic structure that rests on top-down communications mitigate efforts towards sustainable health system integration. PMID:25025872

The development of integrated service centre system for professional teachers empowerment in North Sumatera

Science.gov (United States)

Gultom, S.; Simanjorang, M. M.; Muchtar, Z.; Mansyur, A.

2018-03-01

Based on Act number 12 in year 2012 the function of higher education is related to individual, social community, knowledge and technology development. Hence, higher education providers need to think and develop policies in order to improve their service and fulfil the higher education function. As part of the effort to fulfil its function Universitas Negeri Medan (Unimed), which historically was a pre-service teacher training institute, should has a special interest on improving teachers’ professionalism. The Act number 14 in year 2005 described requirements for professional teacher, including academic qualification and set of competencies possessed by the teacher. The Act also guaranties teachers’ right to have opportunities for improving their competencies and academic qualification through training and other professionalism development programme. The question is how this guarantee can be implemented. In order to answer this question a developmental study has been done which aimed on developing an integrated service centre system for professional teachers empowerment. As the name implies, this integrated service centre system is expected to be a real manifestation of Unimed’s support towards the improvement of professional teachers quality, which in the end will boils down to the improvement of national education services quality. The result of this study is an integrated service centre system for professional teachers empowerment that fulfils the professionalism principles described in the Act number 14 in year 2005, which has been developed by considering problems faced by and also supports needed by teachers post certification programme.

The quality of integrated reproductive health services: perspectives of clients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P Maharaj

2005-09-01

Full Text Available The focus of family planning programmes has shifted away from an emphasis on controlling fertility towards helping individuals achieve their reproductive goals. This article seeks to expand knowledge about the quality of integrated services from the perspective of clients at health facilities in KwaZulu-Natal. The results from 300 structured interviews with clients visiting health facilities found that overall quality of services was relatively high. However, the quality of services varied somewhat between rural and urban areas. Clients visiting urban health facilities reported greater satisfaction with services than clients visiting rural health facilities. The interviews with clients suggests that existing efforts to integrate services has had limited success. Clients were rarely offered an expanded range of services during their visit. In most cases, clients only received services for which they presented at the health facility.

Demographic characteristics of patients using a fully integrated psychosocial support service for cancer patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hope Teresa

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Psychosocial support services are an important component of modern cancer treatment. A major challenge for all psychosocial services is the achievement of equity of use. Previous studies in the UK have found that women of higher socio-economic status with breast cancer were over-represented amongst those accessing support services. People with other cancer diagnoses, those from socio-economically deprived areas, and men, were under-represented. Findings The Oncology Health Service, Kingston Upon Hull, UK, delivers fully integrated psychosocial support and interventions. To assess equity of access in this service, a cross-sectional study of all patients with cancer accessing the service during a 5 day period was carried out. One hundred and forty-five patients attended. Forty four percent were male, and the types of cancer were broadly in the proportions expected on the basis of population prevalence (breast cancer 22%, colorectal cancer 21%, lung cancer 16%. Sixty six percent came from the three most deprived quintiles of the Townsend deprivation Index. Conclusions The fully integrated Oncology Health Service in Hull is accessed by a more diverse range of patients than previously reported for other services, and is an example of a model of service by which socially equitable use of psychosocial support in the National Health Service might be achieved.

Space Mission Operations Ground Systems Integration Customer Service

Science.gov (United States)

Roth, Karl

2014-01-01

, and cultural differences, to ensure an efficient response to customer issues using a small Customer Service Team (CST) and adaptability, constant communication with customers, technical expertise and knowledge of services, and dedication to customer service. The HOSC Customer Support Team has implemented a variety of processes, and procedures that help to mitigate the potential problems that arise when integrating ground system services for a variety of complex missions and the lessons learned from this experience will lead the future of customer service in the space operations industry.

Integration of family planning services into HIV care clinics: Results one year after a cluster randomized controlled trial in Kenya.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Craig R Cohen

Full Text Available To determine if integration of family planning (FP and HIV services led to increased use of more effective contraception (i.e. hormonal and permanent methods, and intrauterine devices and decreased pregnancy rates.Cohort analysis following cluster randomized trial, when the Kenya Ministry of Health led integration of the remaining control (delayed integration sites and oversaw integrated services at the original intervention (early integration sites.Eighteen health facilities in Kenya.Women aged 18-45 receiving care: 5682 encounters at baseline, and 11628 encounters during the fourth quarter of year 2."One-stop shop" approach to integrating FP and HIV services.Use of more effective contraceptive methods and incident pregnancy across two years of follow-up.Following integration of FP and HIV services at the six delayed integration clinics, use of more effective contraception increased from 31.7% to 44.2% of encounters (+12.5%; Prevalence ratio (PR = 1.39 (1.19-1.63. Among the twelve early integration sites, the proportion of encounters at which women used more effective contraceptive methods was sustained from the end of the first to the second year of follow-up (37.5% vs. 37.0%. Pregnancy incidence including all 18 integrated sites in year two declined in comparison to the control arm in year one (rate ratio: 0.72; 95% CI 0.60-0.87.Integration of FP services into HIV clinics led to a sustained increase in the use of more effective contraceptives and decrease in pregnancy incidence 24 months following implementation of the integrated service model.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01001507.

Inquiry of Pre-Service Teachers' Concern about Integrating Web 2.0 into Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Hao, Yungwei; Lee, Kathryn S.

2017-01-01

To promote technology integration, it is essential to address pre-service teacher (PST) concerns about facilitating technology-enhanced learning environments. This study adopted the Concerns-Based Adoption Model to investigate PST concern on Web 2.0 integration. Four hundred and eighty-nine PSTs in a teacher education university in north Taiwan…

Integrating palliative care into neurology services: what do the professionals say?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hepgul, N.; Gao, W.; Evans, C.J.; Jackson, D.; Vliet, L.M. van; Byrne, A.; Crosby, V.; Groves, K.E.; Lindsay, F.; Higginson, I.J.

2017-01-01

Objectives: Evaluations of new services for palliative care in non-cancer conditions are few. OPTCARE Neuro is a multicentre trial evaluating the effectiveness of short-term integrated palliative care (SIPC) for progressive long-term neurological conditions. Here, we present survey results

Closing service system gaps for homeless clients with a dual diagnosis: integrated teams and interagency cooperation.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenheck, Robert A; Resnick, Sandra G; Morrissey, Joseph P

2003-06-01

There is great concern about fragmentation of mental health service delivery, especially for dually diagnosed homeless people, and apprehension that such fragmentation adversely affects service access and outcomes. This study first seeks to articulate two alternative approaches to the integration of psychiatric and substance abuse services, one involving an integrated team model and the other a collaborative relationship between agencies. It then applies this conceptualization to a sample of dually diagnosed homeless people who participated in the ACCESS demonstration. Longitudinal outcome data were obtained through interviews at baseline, 3 months, and 12 months with homeless clients with a dual diagnosis (N = 1074) who received ACT-like case management services through the ACCESS demonstration. A survey of ACCESS case managers was conducted to obtain information on: (i) the proportion of clients who received substance abuse services directly from ACCESS case management teams, and the proportion who received services from other agencies; and (ii) the perceived quality of the relationship (i.e. communication, cooperation and trust) between providers--both within the same teams and between agencies. Hierarchical linear modeling was then used to examine the relationship of these two factors to service use and outcome with mixed-model regression analysis. Significant (pintegrated team care is more effective than interagency collaborations. This study broadens the conceptual framework for addressing service system fragmentation by considering both single team integration and interagency coordination, and by considering both program structure and the quality of relationships between providers. Data from a multi-site outcome study demonstrated suggestive associations between perceptions of communication, cooperation and measures of clinical service use. However, the proportion of clients treated entirely within a single team was associated with poorer housing and

Evaluation of the integrated clinic model for HIV/AIDS services in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, 2013-2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Hung, V; Nguyen, S T; Tieu, V T T; Nguyen, T T T; Duong, T H; Lyss, S; Oeltmann, J E

2016-12-21

Setting: Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Viet Nam. Objective: To evaluate a new integrated service model for human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune-deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) care. Design: In HCMC, co-located services, including voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT), HIV treatment at out-patient clinics (OPC), and methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) for persons who inject drugs, have operated under different administrative structures. In the context of decreasing international financial support, integration of these services into one administrative structure with reduced staff occurred in seven districts in HCMC between October 2013 and June 2014. We used a pre-post study design to compare service-related outcomes from routinely collected data at health facilities 6 months before and 6 months after integration. Results: The proportion of HIV-infected persons linked from VCT to OPCs was unchanged or increased following integration. A higher percentage of patients eligible for antiretroviral therapy (ART) were started on ART. The proportion of ART patients lost to follow-up remained unchanged. The proportions of MMT patients who tested positive for heroin or other substances decreased or were unchanged. Conclusions: VCT, OPC and MMT service delivery quality remained the same or improved during the 6 months following the integration. Expansion of the integrated model should be considered for HIV-related services.

[The Promotion of Resources Integration in Long-Term Care Service: The Experience of Taipei City Hospital].

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Meng-Ping; Huang, Chao-Ming; Sun, Wen-Jung; Shih, Chih-Yuan; Hsu, Su-Hsuan; Huang, Sheng-Jean

2018-02-01

The home-based medical care integrated plan under Taiwan National Health Insurance has changed from paying for home-based medical care, home-based nursing, home-based respiratory treatment, and palliative care to paying for a single, continuous home-based care service package. Formerly, physician-visit regulations limited home visits for home-based nursing to providing medical related assessments only. This limitation not only did not provide practical assistance to the public but also caused additional problems for those with mobility problems or who faced difficulties in making visits hospital. This 2016 change in regulations opens the door for doctors to step out their 'ivory tower', while offering the public more options to seek medical assistance in the hope that patients may change their health-seeking behavior. The home-based concept that underlies the medical service system is rooted deeply in the community in order to set up a sound, integrated model of community medical care. It is a critical issue to proceed with timely job handover confirmation with the connecting team and to provide patients with continuous-care services prior to discharge through the discharge-planning service and the connection with the connecting team. This is currently believed to be the only continuous home-based medical care integrated service model in the world. This model not only connects services such as health literacy, rehabilitation, home-based medical care, home-based nursing, community palliative care, and death but also integrates community resources, builds community resources networks, and provides high quality community care services.

Integration of outpatient infectious diseases clinic pharmacy services and specialty pharmacy services for patients with HIV infection.

Science.gov (United States)

Gilbert, Elise M; Gerzenshtein, Lana

2016-06-01

The integration of specialty pharmacy services and existing outpatient clinical pharmacy services within an infectious diseases (ID) clinic to optimize the care of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is described. The management of HIV-infected patients is a highly specialized area of practice, often requiring use of complex medication regimens for reduction of HIV-associated morbidity and mortality prophylaxis and treatment of opportunistic infections, and prevention of HIV transmission. To maximize the effectiveness and safety of treatment with antiretroviral agents and associated pharmacotherapies, an interdisciplinary team is often involved in patient care. At Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine (NM), the outpatient ID clinic has long worked with an interdisciplinary care team including physicians, clinical pharmacists, nurses, and social workers to care for patients with HIV infection. In April 2014, specialty pharmacy services for patients with HIV infection were added to the NM ID clinic's care model to help maintain continuity of care and enhance patient follow-up. The care model includes well-defined roles for clinical pharmacists, pharmacy residents and students on rotation, and licensed pharmacy technicians. Specialty pharmacy services, including medication education, prescription fulfillment, assistance with medication access (e.g., navigation of financial assistance programs, completion of prior-authorization requests), and treatment monitoring, allow for closed-loop medication management of the HIV-infected patient population. Integration of specialty pharmacy services with the interdisciplinary care provided in the outpatient NM ID clinic has enhanced continuity of care for patients with HIV infection in terms of prescription filling, medication counseling, and adherence monitoring. Copyright © 2016 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.

INTEGRITY ANALYSIS OF REAL-TIME PPP TECHNIQUE WITH IGS-RTS SERVICE FOR MARITIME NAVIGATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. El-Diasty

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Open sea and inland waterways are the most widely used mode for transporting goods worldwide. It is the International Maritime Organization (IMO that defines the requirements for position fixing equipment for a worldwide radio-navigation system, in terms of accuracy, integrity, continuity, availability and coverage for the various phases of navigation. Satellite positioning systems can contribute to meet these requirements, as well as optimize marine transportation. Marine navigation usually consists of three major phases identified as Ocean/Coastal/Port approach/Inland waterway, in port navigation and automatic docking with alert limit ranges from 25 m to 0.25 m. GPS positioning is widely used for many applications and is currently recognized by IMO for a future maritime navigation. With the advancement in autonomous GPS positioning techniques such as Precise Point Positioning (PPP and with the advent of new real-time GNSS correction services such as IGS-Real-Time-Service (RTS, it is necessary to investigate the integrity of the PPP-based positioning technique along with IGS-RTS service in terms of availability and reliability for safe navigation in maritime application. This paper monitors the integrity of an autonomous real-time PPP-based GPS positioning system using the IGS real-time service (RTS for maritime applications that require minimum availability of integrity of 99.8 % to fulfil the IMO integrity standards. To examine the integrity of the real-time IGS-RTS PPP-based technique for maritime applications, kinematic data from a dual frequency GPS receiver is collected onboard a vessel and investigated with the real-time IGS-RTS PPP-based GPS positioning technique. It is shown that the availability of integrity of the real-time IGS-RTS PPP-based GPS solution is 100 % for all navigation phases and therefore fulfil the IMO integrity standards (99.8 % availability immediately (after 1 second, after 2 minutes and after 42 minutes

Integrity Analysis of Real-Time Ppp Technique with Igs-Rts Service for Maritime Navigation

Science.gov (United States)

El-Diasty, M.

2017-10-01

Open sea and inland waterways are the most widely used mode for transporting goods worldwide. It is the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that defines the requirements for position fixing equipment for a worldwide radio-navigation system, in terms of accuracy, integrity, continuity, availability and coverage for the various phases of navigation. Satellite positioning systems can contribute to meet these requirements, as well as optimize marine transportation. Marine navigation usually consists of three major phases identified as Ocean/Coastal/Port approach/Inland waterway, in port navigation and automatic docking with alert limit ranges from 25 m to 0.25 m. GPS positioning is widely used for many applications and is currently recognized by IMO for a future maritime navigation. With the advancement in autonomous GPS positioning techniques such as Precise Point Positioning (PPP) and with the advent of new real-time GNSS correction services such as IGS-Real-Time-Service (RTS), it is necessary to investigate the integrity of the PPP-based positioning technique along with IGS-RTS service in terms of availability and reliability for safe navigation in maritime application. This paper monitors the integrity of an autonomous real-time PPP-based GPS positioning system using the IGS real-time service (RTS) for maritime applications that require minimum availability of integrity of 99.8 % to fulfil the IMO integrity standards. To examine the integrity of the real-time IGS-RTS PPP-based technique for maritime applications, kinematic data from a dual frequency GPS receiver is collected onboard a vessel and investigated with the real-time IGS-RTS PPP-based GPS positioning technique. It is shown that the availability of integrity of the real-time IGS-RTS PPP-based GPS solution is 100 % for all navigation phases and therefore fulfil the IMO integrity standards (99.8 % availability) immediately (after 1 second), after 2 minutes and after 42 minutes of convergence

A SURVEY ON OPTIMIZATION APPROACHES TO SEMANTIC SERVICE DISCOVERY TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED SOLUTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chellammal Surianarayanan

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The process of semantic service discovery using an ontology reasoner such as Pellet is time consuming. This restricts the usage of web services in real time applications having dynamic composition requirements. As performance of semantic service discovery is crucial in service composition, it should be optimized. Various optimization methods are being proposed to improve the performance of semantic discovery. In this work, we investigate the existing optimization methods and broadly classify optimization mechanisms into two categories, namely optimization by efficient reasoning and optimization by efficient matching. Optimization by efficient matching is further classified into subcategories such as optimization by clustering, optimization by inverted indexing, optimization by caching, optimization by hybrid methods, optimization by efficient data structures and optimization by efficient matching algorithms. With a detailed study of different methods, an integrated optimization infrastructure along with matching method has been proposed to improve the performance of semantic matching component. To achieve better optimization the proposed method integrates the effects of caching, clustering and indexing. Theoretical aspects of performance evaluation of the proposed method are discussed.

How to assess and prepare health systems in low- and middle-income countries for integration of services-a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Topp, Stephanie M; Abimbola, Seye; Joshi, Rohina; Negin, Joel

2018-03-01

Despite growing support for integration of frontline services, a lack of information about the pre-conditions necessary to integrate such services hampers the ability of policy makers and implementers to assess how feasible or worthwhile integration may be, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We adopted a modified systematic review with aspects of realist review, including quantitative and qualitative studies that incorporated assessment of health system preparedness for and capacity to implement integrated services. We searched Medline via Ovid, Web of Science and the Cochrane library using terms adapted from Dudley and Garner's systematic review on integration in LMICs. From an initial list of 10 550 articles, 206 were selected for full-text review by two reviewers who independently reviewed articles and inductively extracted and synthesized themes related to health system preparedness. We identified five 'context' related categories and four health system 'capability' themes. The contextual enabling and constraining factors for frontline service integration were: (1) the organizational framework of frontline services, (2) health care worker preparedness, (3) community and client preparedness, (4) upstream logistics and (5) policy and governance issues. The intersecting health system capabilities identified were the need for: (1) sufficiently functional frontline health services, (2) sufficiently trained and motivated health care workers, (3) availability of technical tools and equipment suitable to facilitate integrated frontline services and (4) appropriately devolved authority and decision-making processes to enable frontline managers and staff to adapt integration to local circumstances. Moving beyond claims that integration is defined differently by different programs and thus unsuitable for comparison, this review demonstrates that synthesis is possible. It presents a common set of contextual factors and health system capabilities

[Vertical integration and contracting-out in generic hospital services in Spain].

Science.gov (United States)

Puig-Junoy, J; Pérez-Sust, P

2002-01-01

This study examines the factors that influence make or buy decisions corresponding to four generic services (housekeeping, laundry, food services, and maintenance and security) in Spanish hospitals (3,160 transactions in 790 hospitals). The empirical estimation of a logistic model based on hospital utility maximization is presented. Factors included in the model are not only those related to transaction costs, but also those related to public intervention and the political dimension. A total of 55.7% of hospitals contracted-out at least one of the generic services. The services most frequently contracted-out were housekeeping and maintenance and security(45.1 and 32.5%, respectively). In contrast, the services (94.3% and 80.1%, respectively). Hospital size (economies of scale), measured by the number of beds, was one of the most important factors influencing make or buy decisions. We find evidence that economies of scale are related to a higher level of vertical integration, while specialization and for-profit objectives favor the decision to contract-out. The choice of organizational model for laundry services presents a different pattern from that of the other three services. Empirical results show that some asset specificity could be present in laundry services.

Humanization of the civil service in the context of the European integration of Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O. A. Lyndyuk

2017-03-01

Full Text Available European integration of Ukraine requires new philosophy of governance modernization and organization, an effective functioning of the civil service system. The urgency of the implementation of humanization approach is a priority for modernization of the national civil service system. The problem of humanization of the civil service in the context of the European integration of Ukraine has been studied in the article. The essence of concepts of «humanism» and «humanization of the civil service» has been considered. Humanism is understood as reflected anthropocentrism, with the human being the object with the highest value. The term «humanization of the civil service» means a deliberate reorientation of the civil service and its objects to recognize a human as an absolute value, «a measure of all things» and to meet the vital needs of society, creating conditions for its full self-realization and ensuring sustainable human development. The civil service must guarantee the security and stability of life and protect rights, freedoms and interests of each individual. Humanization of civil service is also determined as strengthening the rights and freedoms of civil servants, special protection of their dignity and the formation of new humanistic principles of civil service. The features of humanization of the national civil service have been analyzed. It has been found that the human is considered to be the highest value and the content and direction of civil servants activity is determined by ensuring his rights and freedoms. The necessity of changing the priorities of civil service modernization on the basis of humanization, orientation on meeting the needs of human and citizen, as well as creating conditions for closer implementation of national civil service standards to those used in the European Union has been proved. Changes in the philosophy of the civil service of Ukraine should be directed to «serving people», functioning of «service

An analysis of the economic and patient outcome impact of an integrated COPD service in east London.

Science.gov (United States)

Garner, Anna; Hodson, Matthew; Ketsetzis, Georgios; Pulle, Laurence; Yorke, Janelle; Bhowmik, Angshu

2017-01-01

Exacerbations of COPD carry a huge burden of morbidity and a significant economic impact. It has been shown that home care may be useful for exacerbations of COPD. This article presents a review of an integrated COPD service in east London. Hospital Episode Statistics, Public Health Mortality Files and clinical data were used to analyze differences in health care usage and COPD patient outcomes, including COPD assessment test (CAT) scores for a subsample, before and after the introduction of the integrated service. There was a significant (30%) reduction in the number of hospital bed days for COPD patients ( P economic model shows that the economic benefits of the service (via impact on place of death and reduction in length of hospital stay) were almost equal to the cost of the service. The increase in proportion of short-stay admissions and the reduction in bed days suggest an impact of the service on early supported discharge and that this along with an improvement in patient clinical outcomes and in quality of end-of-life care shows that an exemplar integrated COPD service can provide benefits that equate to a nearly cost-neutral service.

A cloud-based production system for information and service integration: an internet of things case study on waste electronics

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xi Vincent; Wang, Lihui

2017-08-01

Cloud computing is the new enabling technology that offers centralised computing, flexible data storage and scalable services. In the manufacturing context, it is possible to utilise the Cloud technology to integrate and provide industrial resources and capabilities in terms of Cloud services. In this paper, a function block-based integration mechanism is developed to connect various types of production resources. A Cloud-based architecture is also deployed to offer a service pool which maintains these resources as production services. The proposed system provides a flexible and integrated information environment for the Cloud-based production system. As a specific type of manufacturing, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) remanufacturing experiences difficulties in system integration, information exchange and resource management. In this research, WEEE is selected as the example of Internet of Things to demonstrate how the obstacles and bottlenecks are overcome with the help of Cloud-based informatics approach. In the case studies, the WEEE recycle/recovery capabilities are also integrated and deployed as flexible Cloud services. Supporting mechanisms and technologies are presented and evaluated towards the end of the paper.

Information Integration Platform for Patient-Centric Healthcare Services: Design, Prototype and Dependability Aspects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yohanes Baptista Dafferianto Trinugroho

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Technology innovations have pushed today’s healthcare sector to an unprecedented new level. Various portable and wearable medical and fitness devices are being sold in the consumer market to provide the self-empowerment of a healthier lifestyle to society. Many vendors provide additional cloud-based services for devices they manufacture, enabling the users to visualize, store and share the gathered information through the Internet. However, most of these services are integrated with the devices in a closed “silo” manner, where the devices can only be used with the provided services. To tackle this issue, an information integration platform (IIP has been developed to support communications between devices and Internet-based services in an event-driven fashion by adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA principles and a publish/subscribe messaging pattern. It follows the “Internet of Things” (IoT idea of connecting everyday objects to various networks and to enable the dissemination of the gathered information to the global information space through the Internet. A patient-centric healthcare service environment is chosen as the target scenario for the deployment of the platform, as this is a domain where IoT can have a direct positive impact on quality of life enhancement. This paper describes the developed platform, with emphasis on dependability aspects, including availability, scalability and security.

Integrated social facility location planning for decision support: Accessibility studies provide support to facility location and integration of social service provision

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Green, Cheri A

2012-09-01

Full Text Available for two or more facilities to create an integrated plan for development Step 6 Costing of development plan Case Study Access norms and thresholds guidelines in accessibility analysis Appropriate norms/provision guidelines facilitate both service... access norms and threshold standards ?Test the relationship between service demand and the supply (service capacity) of the facility provision points within a defined catchment area ?Promote the ?right?sizing? of facilities relative to the demand...

What Happens to Integrated Product Development Models with Product/Service-System Approaches?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tan, Adrian; McAloone, Timothy Charles; Andreasen, Mogens Myrup

2006-01-01

Integrated Product Development (IPD) has traditionally focused on the development activities relating to physical technological artefacts. With the advent of business approaches for manufacturing firms based on providing customers the utility of integrated products and services – a term dubbed...... ‘product/service-systems (PSS)’ – companies need to extend their activities to include new dimensions of development. Within the paradigm of mass production and consumption, traditional product-oriented business strategies regarded physical technological artefacts (products) as the mediators of customer...... value. Value was based on the exchange of products between a providing company and a receiving customer. The more products the company could sell, the more revenue it generated. At the point of sale the ownership and responsibility of the product was transferred from company to customer. A customer...

Using HIV&AIDS statistics in pre-service Mathematics Education to integrate HIV&AIDS education.

Science.gov (United States)

van Laren, Linda

2012-12-01

In South Africa, the HIV&AIDS education policy documents indicate opportunities for integration across disciplines/subjects. There are different interpretations of integration/inclusion and mainstreaming HIV&AIDS education, and numerous levels of integration. Integration ensures that learners experience the disciplines/subjects as being linked and related, and integration is required to support and expand the learners' opportunities to attain skills, acquire knowledge and develop attitudes and values across the curriculum. This study makes use of self-study methodology where I, a teacher educator, aim to improve my practice through including HIV&AIDS statistics in Mathematics Education. This article focuses on how I used HIV&AIDS statistics to facilitate pre-service teacher reflection and introduce them to integration of HIV&AIDS education across the curriculum. After pre-service teachers were provided with HIV statistics, they drew a pie chart which graphically illustrated the situation and reflected on issues relating to HIV&AIDS. Three themes emerged from the analysis of their reflections. The themes relate to the need for further HIV&AIDS education, the changing pastoral role of teachers and the changing context of teaching. This information indicates that the use of statistics is an appropriate means of initiating the integration of HIV&AIDS education into the academic curriculum.

Mainstreaming Natural Capital into Decisions: Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arnas Palaima

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the article is to review current paradigms in ecosystem services valuation, existing gaps and current trends in addressing those gaps. Natural capital, often defined as the stock of natural ecosystems that yields a flow of valuable ecosystem goods or services into the future, is often undervalued or not valued at all by governments, business and society, which leads to environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity. One of the major reasons of such undervaluation is the lack of practical, realistic quantitative methods/models that would establish ecosystem services value and its change due to human development. A promising, recently developed ecosystem services modeling system is InVEST: “Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-Offs.” InVEST is a set of Geographic Information Systems (GIS models that predict the provision and value of ecosystem services and habitat provision given land use/land cover maps and related biophysical, economic, and institutional data for the study region. InVEST, if further developed and applied in a systematic way, could facilitate mainstreaming the natural capital into decisions at all levels and provide a strong foundation for local natural resources managers to improve and optimize their environmental management strategies.

Program collaboration and service integration activities among HIV programs in 59 U.S. health departments.

Science.gov (United States)

Fitz Harris, Lauren F; Toledo, Lauren; Dunbar, Erica; Aquino, Gustavo A; Nesheim, Steven R

2014-01-01

We identified the level and type of program collaboration and service integration (PCSI) among HIV prevention programs in 59 CDC-funded health department jurisdictions. Annual progress reports (APRs) completed by all 59 health departments funded by CDC for HIV prevention activities were reviewed for collaborative and integrated activities reported by HIV programs for calendar year 2009. We identified associations between PCSI activities and funding, AIDS diagnosis rate, and organizational integration. HIV programs collaborated with other health department programs through data-related activities, provider training, and providing funding for sexually transmitted disease (STD) activities in 24 (41%), 31 (53%), and 16 (27%) jurisdictions, respectively. Of the 59 jurisdictions, 57 (97%) reported integrated HIV and STD testing at the same venue, 39 (66%) reported integrated HIV and tuberculosis testing, and 26 (44%) reported integrated HIV and viral hepatitis testing. Forty-five (76%) jurisdictions reported providing integrated education/outreach activities for HIV and at least one other disease. Twenty-six (44%) jurisdictions reported integrated partner services among HIV and STD programs. Overall, the level of PCSI activities was not associated with HIV funding, AIDS diagnoses, or organizational integration. HIV programs in health departments collaborate primarily with STD programs. Key PCSI activities include integrated testing, integrated education/outreach, and training. Future assessments are needed to evaluate PCSI activities and to identify the level of collaboration and integration among prevention programs.

Device- and service profiles for integrated or systems based on open standards

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mildner Alexander

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Integrated OR systems nowadays are closed and proprietary, so that the interconnection of components from third-party vendors is only possible with high time and cost effort. An integrated operating theatre with open interfaces, giving clinical operators the opportunity to choose individual medical devices from different manufacturers, is currently being developed in the framework of the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research funded project OR.NET [1]. Actual standards and concepts regarding technical feasibility and accreditation process do not cope with the requirements for modular integration based on an open standard. Therefore, strategies as well as service and device profiles to enable a procedure for risk management and certifiability are in the focus of the project work. Amongst others, a concept for User Interface Profiles (UI-Profiles has been conceived in order to describe medical device functions and the entire user interface regarding Human-Machine-Interaction (HMI characteristics with the aim to identify human-induced risks of central user interfaces. The use of standardized device and service profiles shall allow the manufacturers to integrate their medical devices in the OR.NET network, without disclosing the medical devices’ risk analysis and related confidential knowledge or proprietary information.

Integration of services for older people: back to funding

OpenAIRE

Hébert, Réjean

2012-01-01

Purpose To demonstrate that funding is an essential component of integrated care, even in a universal publicly funded health care system. Context The PRISMA coordination-type model is actually being generalized in the Province of Qu?bec (Canada) concurrently with the creation of Health and Social Services Centers (HSSC), a merging of hospitals, community centers and nursing homes in a local area. Case description PRISMA originally included six components: coordination tables, single entry poi...

Integrating Grid Services into the Cray XT4 Environment

OpenAIRE

Cholia, Shreyas

2009-01-01

The 38640 core Cray XT4 "Franklin" system at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is a massively parallel resource available to Department of Energy researchers that also provides on-demand grid computing to the Open Science Grid. The integration of grid services on Franklin presented various challenges, including fundamental differences between the interactive and compute nodes, a stripped down compute-node operating system without dynamic library support, a share...

Logistics Service Provider Selection through an Integrated Fuzzy Multicriteria Decision Making Approach

OpenAIRE

Gülşen Akman; Kasım Baynal

2014-01-01

Nowadays, the demand of third-party logistics provider becomes an increasingly important issue for companies to improve their customer service and to decrease logistics costs. This paper presents an integrated fuzzy approach for the evaluation and selection of 3rd party logistics service providers. This method consists of two techniques: (1) use fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to identify weights of evaluation criteria; (2) apply fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal so...

Securing remote services by integrating SecurID strong authentication technology in EFDA-Federation infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Castro, R., E-mail: rodrigo.castro@visite.es [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Madrid (Spain); Barbato, P. [Consorzio RFX, Euratom ENEA Association, Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova (Italy); Vega, J. [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Madrid (Spain); Taliercio, C. [Consorzio RFX, Euratom ENEA Association, Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova (Italy)

2011-10-15

Remote participation facilities among fusion laboratories require access control solutions with two main objectives: to preserve the usability of the systems and to guaranty the required level of security for accessing to shared services. On one hand, this security solution has to be: single-sign-on, transparent for users, compatible with user mobility, and compatible with used client applications. On the other hand, it has to be compatible with shared services and resources among organisations, providing in each case the required access security level. EFDA-Federation is a security infrastructure that integrates a set of fusion laboratories and enables to share resources and services fulfilling the requirements previously described. In EFDA community, JET and RFX have security access policies to some of their services that require strong authentication mechanisms. In both cases, strong authentication is based on RSA SecurID tokens. This is a hardware device that is supplied to and generates a new password every minute. The job presents two main results. The first one is the integration of RSA SecurID into EFDA-Federation. Thanks to it, federated organisations are able to offer SecurID to their users as an alternative strong authentication mechanism, with the corresponding increase of security level. The second result is the development of a new access control mechanism based on port knocking techniques and its integration into EFDA-Federation. Additionally, a real application in RFX is presented and includes the integration of its SecurID infrastructure as federated authentication mechanism, and the application of the new access control mechanism to its MDSplus server.

Securing remote services by integrating SecurID strong authentication technology in EFDA-Federation infrastructure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Castro, R.; Barbato, P.; Vega, J.; Taliercio, C.

2011-01-01

Remote participation facilities among fusion laboratories require access control solutions with two main objectives: to preserve the usability of the systems and to guaranty the required level of security for accessing to shared services. On one hand, this security solution has to be: single-sign-on, transparent for users, compatible with user mobility, and compatible with used client applications. On the other hand, it has to be compatible with shared services and resources among organisations, providing in each case the required access security level. EFDA-Federation is a security infrastructure that integrates a set of fusion laboratories and enables to share resources and services fulfilling the requirements previously described. In EFDA community, JET and RFX have security access policies to some of their services that require strong authentication mechanisms. In both cases, strong authentication is based on RSA SecurID tokens. This is a hardware device that is supplied to and generates a new password every minute. The job presents two main results. The first one is the integration of RSA SecurID into EFDA-Federation. Thanks to it, federated organisations are able to offer SecurID to their users as an alternative strong authentication mechanism, with the corresponding increase of security level. The second result is the development of a new access control mechanism based on port knocking techniques and its integration into EFDA-Federation. Additionally, a real application in RFX is presented and includes the integration of its SecurID infrastructure as federated authentication mechanism, and the application of the new access control mechanism to its MDSplus server.

Wolf pack hunting strategy for automatic generation control of an islanding smart distribution network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xi, Lei; Zhang, Zeyu; Yang, Bo; Huang, Linni; Yu, Tao

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A mixed homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-agent based wolf pack hunting (WPH) method is proposed. • WPH can effectively handle the ever-increasing penetration of renewable energy in smart grid. • An AGC power dispatch, coordinated control, and electric power autonomy of an ISDN is achieved. - Abstract: As the conventional centralized automatic generation control (AGC) is inadequate to handle the ever-increasing penetration of renewable energy and the requirement of plug-and-play of smart grid, this paper proposes a mixed homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-agent based wolf pack hunting (WPH) strategy to achieve a fast AGC power dispatch, optimal coordinated control, and electric power autonomy of an islanding smart distribution network (ISDN). A virtual consensus variable is employed to deal with the topology variation resulted from the excess of power limits and to achieve the plug-and-play of AGC units. Then an integrated objective of frequency deviation and short-term economic dispatch is developed, such that all units can maintain an optimal operation in the presence of load disturbances. Four case studies are undertaken to an ISDN with various distributed generations and microgrids. Simulation results demonstrate that WPH has a greater robustness and a faster dynamic optimization than that of conventional approaches, which can increase the utilization rate of the renewable energy and effectively resolve the coordination and electric power autonomy of ISDN.

Investigation for integration of the German Public Health Service in catastrophe and disaster prevention programs in Germany

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pfenninger, E.; Koenig, S.; Himmelseher, S.

2004-01-01

This research project aimed at investigating the integration of the GPHS into the plans for civil defence and protection as well as catastrophe prevention of the Federal Republic of Germany. Following a comprehensive analysis of the current situation, potential proposals for an improved integrative approach will be presented. In view of the lack of topics relevant for medical care in disaster medicine in educational curricula and training programs for medical students and postgraduate board programs for public health physicians, a working group of the Civil Protection Board of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior already complained in their 'Report on execution of legal rules for protection and rescue of human life as well as restitution of public health after disaster' in 1999, that the integration of the GPHS into catastrophe and disaster prevention programs has insufficiently been solved. On a point-by-point approach, our project analysed the following issues: - Legislative acts for integration of the German Public Health Service into medical care in catastrophes and disasters to protect the civilian population of Germany and their implementation and execution. - Administrative rules and directives on state and district levels that show relationship to integration of the German Public Health Service into preparedness programs for catastrophe prevention and management and their implementation and execution. - Education and postgraduate training options for physicians and non-physician employees of the German Public health Service to prepare for medical care in catastrophes and disasters. - State of knowledge and experience of the German Public Health Service personnel in emergency and disaster medicine. - Evaluation of the German administrative catastrophe prevention authorities with regard to their integration of the German Public Health Service into preparedness programs for catastrophe prevention and management. - Development of a concept to remedy the

Measuring and Supporting Pre-Service Teachers' Self-Efficacy towards Computers, Teaching, and Technology Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Killi, Carita; Kauppinen, Merja; Coiro, Julie; Utriainen, Jukka

2016-01-01

This paper reports on two studies designed to examine pre-service teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Study I investigated the measurement properties of a self-efficacy beliefs questionnaire comprising scales for computer self-efficacy, teacher self-efficacy, and self-efficacy towards technology integration. In Study I, 200 pre-service teachers…

The Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration (SADI Web service Design-Pattern, API and Reference Implementation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wilkinson Mark D

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The complexity and inter-related nature of biological data poses a difficult challenge for data and tool integration. There has been a proliferation of interoperability standards and projects over the past decade, none of which has been widely adopted by the bioinformatics community. Recent attempts have focused on the use of semantics to assist integration, and Semantic Web technologies are being welcomed by this community. Description SADI - Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration - is a lightweight set of fully standards-compliant Semantic Web service design patterns that simplify the publication of services of the type commonly found in bioinformatics and other scientific domains. Using Semantic Web technologies at every level of the Web services "stack", SADI services consume and produce instances of OWL Classes following a small number of very straightforward best-practices. In addition, we provide codebases that support these best-practices, and plug-in tools to popular developer and client software that dramatically simplify deployment of services by providers, and the discovery and utilization of those services by their consumers. Conclusions SADI Services are fully compliant with, and utilize only foundational Web standards; are simple to create and maintain for service providers; and can be discovered and utilized in a very intuitive way by biologist end-users. In addition, the SADI design patterns significantly improve the ability of software to automatically discover appropriate services based on user-needs, and automatically chain these into complex analytical workflows. We show that, when resources are exposed through SADI, data compliant with a given ontological model can be automatically gathered, or generated, from these distributed, non-coordinating resources - a behaviour we have not observed in any other Semantic system. Finally, we show that, using SADI, data dynamically generated from Web services

The Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration (SADI) Web service Design-Pattern, API and Reference Implementation

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background The complexity and inter-related nature of biological data poses a difficult challenge for data and tool integration. There has been a proliferation of interoperability standards and projects over the past decade, none of which has been widely adopted by the bioinformatics community. Recent attempts have focused on the use of semantics to assist integration, and Semantic Web technologies are being welcomed by this community. Description SADI - Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration - is a lightweight set of fully standards-compliant Semantic Web service design patterns that simplify the publication of services of the type commonly found in bioinformatics and other scientific domains. Using Semantic Web technologies at every level of the Web services "stack", SADI services consume and produce instances of OWL Classes following a small number of very straightforward best-practices. In addition, we provide codebases that support these best-practices, and plug-in tools to popular developer and client software that dramatically simplify deployment of services by providers, and the discovery and utilization of those services by their consumers. Conclusions SADI Services are fully compliant with, and utilize only foundational Web standards; are simple to create and maintain for service providers; and can be discovered and utilized in a very intuitive way by biologist end-users. In addition, the SADI design patterns significantly improve the ability of software to automatically discover appropriate services based on user-needs, and automatically chain these into complex analytical workflows. We show that, when resources are exposed through SADI, data compliant with a given ontological model can be automatically gathered, or generated, from these distributed, non-coordinating resources - a behaviour we have not observed in any other Semantic system. Finally, we show that, using SADI, data dynamically generated from Web services can be explored in a manner

The Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration (SADI) Web service Design-Pattern, API and Reference Implementation.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilkinson, Mark D; Vandervalk, Benjamin; McCarthy, Luke

2011-10-24

The complexity and inter-related nature of biological data poses a difficult challenge for data and tool integration. There has been a proliferation of interoperability standards and projects over the past decade, none of which has been widely adopted by the bioinformatics community. Recent attempts have focused on the use of semantics to assist integration, and Semantic Web technologies are being welcomed by this community. SADI - Semantic Automated Discovery and Integration - is a lightweight set of fully standards-compliant Semantic Web service design patterns that simplify the publication of services of the type commonly found in bioinformatics and other scientific domains. Using Semantic Web technologies at every level of the Web services "stack", SADI services consume and produce instances of OWL Classes following a small number of very straightforward best-practices. In addition, we provide codebases that support these best-practices, and plug-in tools to popular developer and client software that dramatically simplify deployment of services by providers, and the discovery and utilization of those services by their consumers. SADI Services are fully compliant with, and utilize only foundational Web standards; are simple to create and maintain for service providers; and can be discovered and utilized in a very intuitive way by biologist end-users. In addition, the SADI design patterns significantly improve the ability of software to automatically discover appropriate services based on user-needs, and automatically chain these into complex analytical workflows. We show that, when resources are exposed through SADI, data compliant with a given ontological model can be automatically gathered, or generated, from these distributed, non-coordinating resources - a behaviour we have not observed in any other Semantic system. Finally, we show that, using SADI, data dynamically generated from Web services can be explored in a manner very similar to data housed in

Postpartum family planning integration with maternal, newborn and child health services: a cross-sectional analysis of client flow patterns in India and Kenya.

Science.gov (United States)

Mackenzie, Devon; Pfitzer, Anne; Maly, Christina; Waka, Charles; Singh, Gajendra; Sanyal, Abanti

2018-04-03

Maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services represent opportunities to integrate postpartum family planning (PPFP). Objectives were to determine levels of MNCH-family planning (FP) integration and associations between integration, client characteristics and service delivery factors in facilities that received programmatic PPFP support. Cross-sectional client flow assessment conducted during May-July 2014, over 5 days at 10 purposively selected public sector facilities in India (4 hospitals) and Kenya (2 hospitals and 4 health centres). 2158 client visits tracked (1294 India; 864 Kenya). Women aged 18 or older accessing services while pregnant and/or with a child under 2 years. PPFP/postpartum intrauterine device-Bihar, India (2012-2013); Jharkhand, India (2009-2014); Embu, Kenya (2006-2010). Maternal, infant and young child nutrition/FP integration-Bondo, Kenya (2011-2014). Proportion of visits where clients received integrated MNCH-FP services, client characteristics as predictors of MNCH-FP integration and MNCH-FP integration as predictor of length of time spent at facility. Levels of MNCH-FP integration varied widely across facilities (5.3% to 63.0%), as did proportion of clients receiving MNCH-FP integrated services by service area. Clients travelling 30-59 min were half as likely to receive integrated services versus those travelling under 30 min (OR 0.5, 95% CI 0.4 to 0.7, Pintegration by MNCH service area. FP integration was highest in areas receiving specific support. Integration does not seem to impose an undue burden on clients in terms of time spent at the facility. Clients living furthest from facilities are least likely to receive integrated services. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Integration services to enable regional shared electronic health records.

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira, Ilídio C; Cunha, João P S

2011-01-01

eHealth is expected to integrate a comprehensive set of patient data sources into a coherent continuum, but implementations vary and Portugal is still lacking on electronic patient data sharing. In this work, we present a clinical information hub to aggregate multi-institution patient data and bridge the information silos. This integration platform enables a coherent object model, services-oriented applications development and a trust framework. It has been instantiated in the Rede Telemática de Saúde (www.RTSaude.org) to support a regional Electronic Health Record approach, fed dynamically from production systems at eight partner institutions, providing access to more than 11,000,000 care episodes, relating to over 350,000 citizens. The network has obtained the necessary clearance from the Portuguese data protection agency.

Current integration of tuberculosis (TB and HIV services in South Africa, 2011.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joel C Chehab

Full Text Available SETTING: Public Health Facilities in South Africa. OBJECTIVE: To assess the current integration of TB and HIV services in South Africa, 2011. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study of 49 randomly selected health facilities in South Africa. Trained interviewers administered a standardized questionnaire to one staff member responsible for TB and HIV in each facility on aspects of TB/HIV policy, integration and recording and reporting. We calculated and compared descriptive statistics by province and facility type. RESULTS: Of the 49 health facilities 35 (71% provided isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT and 35 (71% offered antiretroviral therapy (ART. Among assessed sites in February 2011, 2,512 patients were newly diagnosed with HIV infection, of whom 1,913 (76% were screened for TB symptoms, and 616 of 1,332 (46% of those screened negative for TB were initiated on IPT. Of 1,072 patients newly registered with TB in February 2011, 144 (13% were already on ART prior to Tb clinical diagnosis, and 451 (42% were newly diagnosed with HIV infection. Of those, 84 (19% were initiated on ART. Primary health clinics were less likely to offer ART compared to district hospitals or community health centers (p<0.001. CONCLUSION: As of February 2011, integration of TB and HIV services is taking place in public medical facilities in South Africa. Among these services, IPT in people living with HIV and ART in TB patients are the least available.

An integrated pan-European ancillary services market for frequency control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scherer, Marc; Zima, Marek; Andersson, Göran

2013-01-01

Real-time balancing of mismatches between consumption and production is one of the key elements for the secure operation of power systems. This takes place within the framework of ancillary services managed by respective national transmission system operating companies. The objective of this paper is to investigate the option of one integrated pan-European ancillary services market. Our contribution is twofold: quantifying the potential benefit of such an option and outlining a possible approach to such an option highlighting its positive properties as well as risks and challenges. In several recently published considerations of pan-European electricity supply models this topic has not been adequately addressed, but we believe it is one of the crucial subjects in shaping the future electricity supply in Europe. -- Author-Highlights: •We investigated the option of a one-area market for frequency control in Continental Europe. •For the current situation a centralised approach may lead to a significant reduction of control reserves. •In the long run it is a possibility to avoid a tremendous increase of needed control reserves. •The implementation of an integrated market is not to be underestimated

Research on Disaster Early Warning and Disaster Relief Integrated Service System Based on Block Data Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, J.; Zhang, H.; Wang, C.; Tang, D.

2018-04-01

With the continuous development of social economy, the interaction between mankind and nature has become increasingly evident. Disastrous global catastrophes have occurred from time to time, causing huge losses to people's lives and property. All governments recognize the importance of the establishment of disaster early warning and release mechanisms, and it is also an urgent issue to improve the comprehensive service level of emergency response and disaster relief. However, disaster early warning and emergency relief information is usually generated by different departments, and the diverse data sources, difficult integration, and limited release speed have always been difficult issues to be solved. Block data is the aggregation of various distributed (point data) and segmentation (data) big data on a specific platform and make them happen continuous polymerization effect, block data theory is a good solution to cross-sectoral, cross-platform Disaster information data sharing and integration problems. This paper attempts to discuss the integrated service mechanism of disaster information aggregation and disaster relief based on block data theory and introduces a location-based integrated service system for disaster early warning and disaster relief.

The capacities of institutions for the integration of ecosystem services in coastal strategic planning: The case of Jiaozhou Bay

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Li, Ruiqian; Li, Yongfu; Woltjer, Johan; van den Brink, Margo

2015-01-01

This paper explains how the practice of integrating ecosystem-service thinking (i.e., ecological benefits for human beings) and institutions (i.e., organisations, policy rules) is essential for coastal spatial planning. Adopting an integrated perspective on ecosystem services (ESs) both helps

Positioning for capitation in long-term care: a profile of vertical integration strategies in health and social service organizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, A M

1998-01-01

During the next decade, the population over age 65 is expected to increase by 11% while the population over age 85 is expected to increase by 42%. These projections suggest that many organizations which currently provide services to the aged will be required to design a range of new products and services for this diverse population. Vertically integrated services provide a viable opportunity to competitively position an organization to respond to the diverse needs of an aged market. Since vertical integration will be essential in negotiating capitate contracts for the aged in the future, this study examined the extent of vertical integration in 116 health and social service organizations in an urban market with an expanding geriatric population.

THE TSUNAMI SERVICE BUS, AN INTEGRATION PLATFORM FOR HETEROGENEOUS SENSOR SYSTEMS

Science.gov (United States)

Fleischer, J.; Häner, R.; Herrnkind, S.; Kriegel, U.; Schwarting, H.; Wächter, J.

2009-12-01

The Tsunami Service Bus (TSB) is the sensor integration platform of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) [1]. The primary goal of GITEWS is to deliver reliable tsunami warnings as fast as possible. This is achieved on basis of various sensor systems like seismometers, ocean instrumentation, and GPS stations, all providing fundamental data to support prediction of tsunami wave propagation by the GITEWS warning center. However, all these sensors come with their own proprietary data formats and specific behavior. Also new sensor types might be added, old sensors will be replaced. To keep GITEWS flexible the TSB was developed in order to access and control sensors in a uniform way. To meet these requirements the TSB follows the architectural blueprint of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The integration platform implements dedicated services communicating via a service infrastructure. The functionality required for early warnings is provided by loosely coupled services replacing the "hard-wired" coupling at data level. Changes in the sensor specification are confined to the data level without affecting the warning center. Great emphasis was laid on following the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standard [2], specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) [3]. As a result the full functionality needed in GITEWS could be achieved by implementing the four SWE services: The Sensor Observation Service for retrieving sensor measurements, the Sensor Alert Service in order to deliver sensor alerts, the Sensor Planning Service for tasking sensors, and the Web Notification Service for conduction messages to various media channels. Beyond these services the TSB also follows SWE Observation & Measurements specifications (O&M) for data encoding and Sensor Model Language (SensorML) for meta information. Moreover, accessing sensors via the TSB is not restricted to GITEWS. Multiple instances of the TSB can be composed to realize federate warning system

Integrated services to support detection, prevention and planning of the agricultural-forest-rural land against fires

Science.gov (United States)

Scipioni, A.; Tagliaferri, F.

2009-04-01

Objective of the document is to define lines of development and distribution of the services to support detection, prevention and planning of the agricultural-forest-rural land against fire. The services will be a valid support on hand of the Regional and National Administrations involved in the agricultural-forest-rural activities (Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies, National Forest Police, ecc..), through the employment of the SIAN "National Agricultural Informative System", that is the integrated national information system for the entire agriculture, forestry and fisheries Administration. The services proposals would be distributed through the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) of the SIAN: the GIS database is a single nation-wide digital graphic database consisting of: - Ortophotos: Aerial images of approz. 45 km2 each with ground resolution of 50 cm; - Cadastral maps: Land maps; - Thematic layers: Land use and crops identification The GIS services can take full advantage of the benefits of SIAN architectural model designed for best integration and interoperability with other Central and Local P.A. bodies whose main items are: - Integration of information from different sources; - Maintainance of the internal coeherence of any integrated information; - Flexibility with respect to technical or organizational changes The "innovative "services described below could be useful to support the development of institutional tasks of public Agencies and Administrations (es. Regions or Civil Protection agencies) according to than previewed from the D.Lgs. 173/98. Services of support to the management of the phenomenon of wildland fires The activities outlined in below figure, don't have a linear and defined temporal sequence, but a dynamic and time integration. It guarantees not only the integrated use of the various information, but also the value of every product, for level of accuracy, coherence and timeliness of the information. Description of four main

Integrated Specialized Early-Course Psychosis Treatment Services - University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Ostojić, DraŽenka; Čulo, Ilaria; Silić, Ante; Kos, Suzana; Savić, Aleksandar

2018-06-01

First episode of psychosis presents a critical period in terms of numerous associated risks, but also possibilities for effective therapeutic interventions. There is a continued focus on early interventions in prodromal states and early course of frank psychosis, aimed at ensuring faster remission, reducing relapses, achieving better long-term functioning, and preventing adverse outcomes linked to untreated psychosis and chronic psychotic disorders. A number of different specialized treatment models and services exist trying to close knowledge gaps and provide clinical interventions to first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients, but there is still no generally accepted standard of care informing our every-day practice. FEP and early-course psychosis specialized treatment model developed in 2004 in University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapce rests on integration of care across different organization units and clinical presentation acuity levels and patient needs (intensive care, FEP inpatient unit, FEP outpatient services including day hospital). Such integration of FEP services allows for flexible entry point on multiple levels, earlier structuring of therapeutic alliance for those requiring inpatient care, reduction of risks associated with FEP, quicker formation of long-term treatment plans, reduction of delay in accessing specialized services, and a more coordinated diagnostic process and recruitment of FEP patient population. Detailed evaluations of outcomes and comparisons with different treatment models are necessary in order to assess strengths and weaknesses of each specific model and inform modifications to current practice models.

Pre-service teachers' competencies for technology integration: Insights from a mathematics-specific instructional technology course

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Agyei, D.D.; Voogt, Joke; Resta, P.

2012-01-01

A combination of various measures (self-report, learning outcomes and written reports) was employed to investigate 104 pre-service teachers’ competencies in spreadsheet integration after enrolling in an Instructional Technology course. The pre-service teachers engaged in a “learning technology by

Service-Learning and Integrated Course Redesign: Principles of Management and the Campus Kitchen Metaproject

Science.gov (United States)

Flannery, Brenda L.; Pragman, Claudia H.

2010-01-01

This article describes the process of redesigning a Principles of Management course to integrate a service-learning metaproject. The metaproject was Campus Kitchen, a food recovery and delivery program operated on a handful of university campuses across the United States. We used L. Dee Fink's integrated course design approach as well as systems…

Challenges in integrating the concept of ecosystem services and values in landscape planning, management and decision making

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Groot, de R.S.; Alkemade, J.R.M.; Braat, L.; Hein, L.G.; Willemen, L.L.J.M.

2010-01-01

Despite the growing body of literature on ecosystem services, still many challenges remain to structurally integrate ecosystem services in landscape planning, management and design. This paper therefore aims to provide an overview of the challenges involved in applying ecosystem service assessment

Communicating value from a service dominant logic perspective: the explicitness of the customer's resource integrating role in advertising

OpenAIRE

Leroi-Werelds, Sara; Streukens, Sandra; Merken, Anne; Janssens, Wim

2013-01-01

Recent research in marketing in general and service logic in particular has indicated that the customer is responsible for his own value creation. The customer has to integrate the resources provided by the firm (goods, services) with other resources by applying his own skills. The customer thus acts as a resource integrator. This paper examines the effects of explicitly stating this customer’s resource integrating role in the advertised message. The results of this study show that the inclus...

Standardization of Ukrainian touristic services within framework of European integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O.V. Milinchuk

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The harmonization of national standards in tourism to international requirements is a prerequisite to perform in accordance with the signed Ukraine and the European Union Association Agreement. The current situation of the national standardization in tourism and directions of its development in the context of European integration are formed in the article. The content and objectives of standardization in the field of tourism are determined. The legislation of the national tourism standardization is reviewed: there are 11 standards in the field of tourism, including 6 interstate standards (GOST which adapted as national. The current system of standards has a numerous outdated requirements, Ukrainian enterprises doesn’t use international standards on the organization of trips of adventure tourism, safety management, customer service on cruise ships and ferries, requirements for tourist services etc. In order to satisfy the requirements of quality of tourism services to the European level is recommended to adapt existing ISO standards to the national tourism legislation and to approve them in 2017.

The EBM-DPSER conceptual model: integrating ecosystem services into the DPSIR framework.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christopher R Kelble

Full Text Available There is a pressing need to integrate biophysical and human dimensions science to better inform holistic ecosystem management supporting the transition from single species or single-sector management to multi-sector ecosystem-based management. Ecosystem-based management should focus upon ecosystem services, since they reflect societal goals, values, desires, and benefits. The inclusion of ecosystem services into holistic management strategies improves management by better capturing the diversity of positive and negative human-natural interactions and making explicit the benefits to society. To facilitate this inclusion, we propose a conceptual model that merges the broadly applied Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR conceptual model with ecosystem services yielding a Driver, Pressure, State, Ecosystem service, and Response (EBM-DPSER conceptual model. The impact module in traditional DPSIR models focuses attention upon negative anthropomorphic impacts on the ecosystem; by replacing impacts with ecosystem services the EBM-DPSER model incorporates not only negative, but also positive changes in the ecosystem. Responses occur as a result of changes in ecosystem services and include inter alia management actions directed at proactively altering human population or individual behavior and infrastructure to meet societal goals. The EBM-DPSER conceptual model was applied to the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas marine ecosystem as a case study to illustrate how it can inform management decisions. This case study captures our system-level understanding and results in a more holistic representation of ecosystem and human society interactions, thus improving our ability to identify trade-offs. The EBM-DPSER model should be a useful operational tool for implementing EBM, in that it fully integrates our knowledge of all ecosystem components while focusing management attention upon those aspects of the ecosystem most important to human society

The EBM-DPSER Conceptual Model: Integrating Ecosystem Services into the DPSIR Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Kelble, Christopher R.; Loomis, Dave K.; Lovelace, Susan; Nuttle, William K.; Ortner, Peter B.; Fletcher, Pamela; Cook, Geoffrey S.; Lorenz, Jerry J.; Boyer, Joseph N.

2013-01-01

There is a pressing need to integrate biophysical and human dimensions science to better inform holistic ecosystem management supporting the transition from single species or single-sector management to multi-sector ecosystem-based management. Ecosystem-based management should focus upon ecosystem services, since they reflect societal goals, values, desires, and benefits. The inclusion of ecosystem services into holistic management strategies improves management by better capturing the diversity of positive and negative human-natural interactions and making explicit the benefits to society. To facilitate this inclusion, we propose a conceptual model that merges the broadly applied Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR) conceptual model with ecosystem services yielding a Driver, Pressure, State, Ecosystem service, and Response (EBM-DPSER) conceptual model. The impact module in traditional DPSIR models focuses attention upon negative anthropomorphic impacts on the ecosystem; by replacing impacts with ecosystem services the EBM-DPSER model incorporates not only negative, but also positive changes in the ecosystem. Responses occur as a result of changes in ecosystem services and include inter alia management actions directed at proactively altering human population or individual behavior and infrastructure to meet societal goals. The EBM-DPSER conceptual model was applied to the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas marine ecosystem as a case study to illustrate how it can inform management decisions. This case study captures our system-level understanding and results in a more holistic representation of ecosystem and human society interactions, thus improving our ability to identify trade-offs. The EBM-DPSER model should be a useful operational tool for implementing EBM, in that it fully integrates our knowledge of all ecosystem components while focusing management attention upon those aspects of the ecosystem most important to human society and does so within

A stakeholder visioning exercise to enhance chronic care and the integration of community pharmacy services.

Science.gov (United States)

Franco-Trigo, L; Tudball, J; Fam, D; Benrimoj, S I; Sabater-Hernández, D

2018-02-21

Collaboration between relevant stakeholders in health service planning enables service contextualization and facilitates its success and integration into practice. Although community pharmacy services (CPSs) aim to improve patients' health and quality of life, their integration in primary care is far from ideal. Key stakeholders for the development of a CPS intended at preventing cardiovascular disease were identified in a previous stakeholder analysis. Engaging these stakeholders to create a shared vision is the subsequent step to focus planning directions and lay sound foundations for future work. This study aims to develop a stakeholder-shared vision of a cardiovascular care model which integrates community pharmacists and to identify initiatives to achieve this vision. A participatory visioning exercise involving 13 stakeholders across the healthcare system was performed. A facilitated workshop, structured in three parts (i.e., introduction; developing the vision; defining the initiatives towards the vision), was designed. The Chronic Care Model inspired the questions that guided the development of the vision. Workshop transcripts, researchers' notes and materials produced by participants were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Stakeholders broadened the objective of the vision to focus on the management of chronic diseases. Their vision yielded 7 principles for advanced chronic care: patient-centered care; multidisciplinary team approach; shared goals; long-term care relationships; evidence-based practice; ease of access to healthcare settings and services by patients; and good communication and coordination. Stakeholders also delineated six environmental factors that can influence their implementation. Twenty-four initiatives to achieve the developed vision were defined. The principles and factors identified as part of the stakeholder shared-vision were combined in a preliminary model for chronic care. This model and initiatives can guide policy

Establishing an integrated gastroenterology service between a medical center and the community.

Science.gov (United States)

Niv, Yaron; Dickman, Ram; Levi, Zohar; Neumann, Gadi; Ehrlich, Dorit; Bitterman, Haim; Dreiher, Jacob; Cohen, Arnon; Comaneshter, Doron; Halpern, Eyran

2015-02-21

To combine community and hospital services in order to enable improvements in patient management, an integrated gastroenterology service (IGS) was established. Referral patterns to specialist clinics were optimized; open access route for endoscopic procedures (including esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy, sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy) was established; family physicians' knowledge and confidence were enhanced; direct communication lines between experts and primary care physicians were opened. Continuing education, guidelines and agreed instructions for referral were promoted by the IGS. Six quality indicators were developed by the Delphi method, rigorously designed and regularly monitored. Improvement was assessed by comparing 2010, 2011 and 2012 indicators. An integrated delivery system in a specific medical field may provide a solution to a fragmented healthcare system impaired by a lack of coordination. In this paper we describe a new integrated gastroenterology service established in April 2010. Waiting time for procedures decreased: 3 mo in April 30th 2010 to 3 wk in April 30th 2011 and stayed between 1-3 wk till December 30th 2012. Average cost for patient's visit decreased from 691 to 638 NIS (a decrease of 7.6%). Six health indicators were improved significantly comparing 2010 to 2012, 2.5% to 67.5%: Bone densitometry for patients with inflammatory bowel disease, preventive medications for high risk patients on aspirin/NSAIDs, colonoscopy following positive fecal occult blood test, gastroscopy in Barrett's esophagus, documentation of family history of colorectal cancer, and colonoscopy in patients with a family history of colorectal cancer. Establishment of an IGS was found to effectively improve quality of care, while being cost-effective.

Design of a terminal solution for integration of in-home health care devices and services towards the Internet-of-Things

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Zhibo; Zheng, Lirong; Tian, Junzhe; Kao-Walter, Sharon; Dubrova, Elena; Chen, Qiang

2015-01-01

In-home health care services based on the Internet-of-Things are promising to resolve the challenges caused by the ageing of population. But the existing research is rather scattered and shows lack of interoperability. In this article, a business-technology co-design methodology is proposed for cross-boundary integration of in-home health care devices and services. In this framework, three key elements of a solution (business model, device and service integration architecture and information system integration architecture) are organically integrated and aligned. In particular, a cooperative Health-IoT ecosystem is formulated, and information systems of all stakeholders are integrated in a cooperative health cloud as well as extended to patients' home through the in-home health care station (IHHS). Design principles of the IHHS includes the reuse of 3C platform, certification of the Health Extension, interoperability and extendibility, convenient and trusted software distribution, standardised and secured electrical health care record handling, effective service composition and efficient data fusion. These principles are applied to the design of an IHHS solution called iMedBox. Detailed device and service integration architecture and hardware and software architecture are presented and verified by an implemented prototype. The quantitative performance analysis and field trials have confirmed the feasibility of the proposed design methodology and solution.

Systems Integration Using Web Services, REST and SOAP: A Practical Report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

GARCIA, C. M.

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In companies environments, it is normal to exist several systems to ease daily activities. In academic environments, it also happens. However, academic environments may be even more heterogeneous as there are many specialized activities, such as: restaurant, library, academic processes, administrative processes and computer network services, such as email and network authentication. To maintain the data consistency throughout the systems, all the systems must be integrated. This integration was carried out in the Federal University of Lavras by using Simples Object Access Protocol (SOAP as communication protocol. The development of a new system (mobile application, it was noticed that SOAP is very CPU-intensive and slow, as mobile devices have constraints such as internet and processing. Thus, a REST-JSON layer to integrate mobile application and the integration architecture was developed, benefiting from all the resources the integration architecture had. By using this new layer, the offer of functions from the integration architecture was also expanded to REST, attending to other applications without having to make big changes in the code. It was measured that the REST-JSON layer consumes around 73% less data than SOAP. The REST-JSON layer was released, attending to about 5600 installations of the application that requests the integration around 54000 times a day.

LEOPACK The integrated services communications system based on LEO satellites

Science.gov (United States)

Negoda, A.; Bunin, S.; Bushuev, E.; Dranovsky, V.

LEOPACK is yet another LEO satellite project which provides global integrated services for 'business' communications. It utilizes packet rather then circuit switching in both terrestrial and satellite chains as well as cellular approach for frequencies use. Original multiple access protocols and decentralized network control make it possible to organize regionally or logically independent and world-wide networks. Relatively small number of satellites (28) provides virtually global network coverage.

Bio-jETI: a service integration, design, and provisioning platform for orchestrated bioinformatics processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Margaria, Tiziana; Kubczak, Christian; Steffen, Bernhard

2008-04-25

With Bio-jETI, we introduce a service platform for interdisciplinary work on biological application domains and illustrate its use in a concrete application concerning statistical data processing in R and xcms for an LC/MS analysis of FAAH gene knockout. Bio-jETI uses the jABC environment for service-oriented modeling and design as a graphical process modeling tool and the jETI service integration technology for remote tool execution. As a service definition and provisioning platform, Bio-jETI has the potential to become a core technology in interdisciplinary service orchestration and technology transfer. Domain experts, like biologists not trained in computer science, directly define complex service orchestrations as process models and use efficient and complex bioinformatics tools in a simple and intuitive way.

Performance problems of regional labor service market in the context of international integration

OpenAIRE

Karlova, Оlena

2014-01-01

The research examines the current state of the market of legal services (by the example of Kharkiv Region). To date the market of legal services of Kharkiv Region is mature and features high professionalism of its participants, well-shaped market segments and positive market trends.The author highlights some performance problems and development opportunities of the regional market in the context of international integration. They include manifestations of unfair competition, low standards of ...

Bringing it All Together: NODC's Geoportal Server as an Integration Tool for Interoperable Data Services

Science.gov (United States)

Casey, K. S.; Li, Y.

2011-12-01

The US National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) has implemented numerous interoperable data technologies in recent years to enhance the discovery, understanding, and use of the vast quantities of data in the NODC archives. These services include OPeNDAP's Hyrax server, Unidata's THREDDS Data Server (TDS), NOAA's Live Access Server (LAS), and most recently the ESRI ArcGIS Server. Combined, these technologies enable NODC to provide access to its data holdings and products through most of the commonly-used standardized web services like the Data Access Protocol (DAP) and the Open Geospatial Consortium suite of services such as the Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS). Despite the strong demand for and use of these services, the acronym-rich environment of services can also result in confusion for producers of data to the NODC archives, for consumers of data from the NODC archives, and for the data stewards at the archives as well. The situation is further complicated by the fact that NODC also maintains some ad hoc services like WODselect, and that not all services can be applied to all of the tens of thousands of collections in the NODC archive; where once every data set was available only through FTP and HTTP servers, now many are also available from the LAS, TDS, Hyrax, and ArcGIS Server. To bring order and clarity to this potentially confusing collection of services, NODC deployed the Geoportal Server into its Archive Management System as an integrating technology that brings together its various data access, visualization, and discovery services as well as its overall metadata management workflows. While providing an enhanced web-based interface for more integrated human-to-machine discovery and access, the deployment also enables NODC for the first time to support a robust set of machine-to-machine discovery services such as the Catalog Service for the Web (CS/W), OpenSearch, and Search and Retrieval via URL (SRU) . This approach allows NODC

Numbers, systems, people: how interactions influence integration. Insights from case studies of HIV and reproductive health services delivery in Kenya.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayhew, Susannah H; Sweeney, Sedona; Warren, Charlotte E; Collumbien, Martine; Ndwiga, Charity; Mutemwa, Richard; Lut, Irina; Colombini, Manuela; Vassall, Anna

2017-11-01

Drawing on rich data from the Integra evaluation of integrated HIV and reproductive-health services, we explored the interaction of systems hardware and software factors to explain why some facilities were able to implement and sustain integrated service delivery while others were not. This article draws on detailed mixed-methods data for four case-study facilities offering reproductive-health and HIV services between 2009 and 2013 in Kenya: (i) time-series client flow, tracking service uptake for 8841 clients; (ii) structured questionnaires with 24 providers; (iii) in-depth interviews with 17 providers; (iv) workload and facility data using a periodic activity review and cost-instruments; and (v) contextual data on external activities related to integration in study sites. Overall, our findings suggested that although structural factors like stock-outs, distribution of staffing and workload, rotation of staff can affect how integrated care is provided, all these factors can be influenced by staff themselves: both frontline and management. Facilities where staff displayed agency of decision making, worked as a team to share workload and had management that supported this, showed better integration delivery and staff were able to overcome some structural deficiencies to enable integrated care. Poor-performing facilities had good structural integration, but staff were unable to utilize this because they were poorly organized, unsupported or teams were dysfunctional. Conscientious objection and moralistic attitudes were also barriers.Integra has demonstrated that structural integration is not sufficient for integrated service delivery. Rather, our case studies show that in some cases excellent leadership and peer-teamwork enabled facilities to perform well despite resource shortages. The ability to provide support for staff to work flexibly to deliver integrated services and build resilient health systems to meet changing needs is particularly relevant as health

Influencing Factors and Integration of ICT into Teaching Practices of Pre- Service and Starting Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Aslan, Aydin; Zhu, Chang

2016-01-01

Teachers need to be competent in integrating ICT into education to support teaching and learning process. This study aims to investigate both the pre-service and starting teachers' perceptions for ICT-related variables--perceived ICT competence, perceived competence in ICT integration, attitudes towards ICT, anxiety around ICT usage, external…

Trends in picture communication

OpenAIRE

Speidel, Joachim

1993-01-01

In the past years significant progress was made with digital transmission of audiovisual services and most interesting trends are visible for the future. Such applications encompass interactive services, like videoconferencing, ISDN-videophone, storage of moving video and audio in computers or on CD, e.g. for multimedia applications. For distribution services, there is an unbroken trend from TV to HDTV. Strong emphasis is on compressed digital video even for transmission to the home.

Discussion on Manufacturing and Services Integration Based on E-Commerce Platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Jinfa

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The integration of manufacturing and services is the key to adapt to the inevitable requirement of the revolution of the development of a new round of mobile Internet industry. They are also the key and trend of the next period to enhance the quality and efficiency of Chinese’s manufacturing industry to release potential services development fully, and cultivate new economic growth point.Meanwhile it makes it more effective than before.The enterprises can publicize their own values as well as collect and deal with consumer feedback of the product experience more effectively.And then,it can grasp the market trends and adapt to developping world more quickly.

Implementing Information and Communication Technology to Support Community Aged Care Service Integration: Lessons from an Australian Aged Care Provider.

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, Heather E; Georgiou, Andrew; Tariq, Amina; Prgomet, Mirela; Warland, Andrew; Armour, Pauline; Westbrook, Johanna I

2017-04-10

There is limited evidence of the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT) to support integrated aged care services. We undertook a case study to describe carelink+, a centralised client service management ICT system implemented by a large aged and community care service provider, Uniting. We sought to explicate the care-related information exchange processes associated with carelink+ and identify lessons for organisations attempting to use ICT to support service integration. Our case study included seventeen interviews and eleven observation sessions with a purposive sample of staff within the organisation. Inductive analysis was used to develop a model of ICT-supported information exchange. Management staff described the integrated care model designed to underpin carelink+. Frontline staff described complex information exchange processes supporting coordination of client services. Mismatches between the data quality and the functions carelink+ was designed to support necessitated the evolution of new work processes associated with the system. There is value in explicitly modelling the work processes that emerge as a consequence of ICT. Continuous evaluation of the match between ICT and work processes will help aged care organisations to achieve higher levels of ICT maturity that support their efforts to provide integrated care to clients.

"It was the whole picture" a mixed methods study of successful components in an integrated wellness service in North East England.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheetham, M; Van der Graaf, P; Khazaeli, B; Gibson, E; Wiseman, A; Rushmer, R

2018-03-22

A growing number of Local Authorities (LAs) have introduced integrated wellness services as part of efforts to deliver cost effective, preventive services that address the social determinants of health. This study examined which elements of an integrated wellness service in the north east of England were effective in improving health and wellbeing (HWB). The study used a mixed-methods approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews (IVs) were conducted with integrated wellness service users (n = 25) and focus groups (FGs) with group based service users (n = 14) and non-service users (n = 23) to gather the views of stakeholders. Findings are presented here alongside analysis of routine monitoring data. The different data were compared to examine what each data source revealed about the effectiveness of the service. Findings suggest that integrated wellness services work by addressing the social determinants of health and respond to multiple complex health and social concerns rather than single issues. The paper identifies examples of 'active ingredients' at the heart of the programme, such as sustained relationships, peer support and confidence building, as well as the activities through which changes take place, such as sports and leisure opportunities which in turn encourage social interaction. Wider wellbeing outcomes, including reduced social isolation and increased self-efficacy are also reported. Practical and motivational support helped build community capacity by encouraging community groups to access funding, helped navigate bureaucratic systems, and promoted understanding of marginalised communities. Fully integrated wellness services could support progression opportunities through volunteering and mentoring. An integrated wellness service that offers a holistic approach was valued by service users and allowed them to address complex issues simultaneously. Few of the reported health gains were captured in routine data. Quantitative and

GAUSS Market Analysis for Integrated Satellite Communication and Navigation Location Based services

Science.gov (United States)

Di Fazio, Antonella; Dricot, Fabienne; Tata, Francesco

2003-07-01

The demand for mobile information services coupled with positioning technologies for delivering value- added services that depend on a user's location has rapidly increased during last years. In particular, services and applications related with improved mobility safety and transport efficiency look very attractive.Solutions for location services vary in respect of positioning accuracy and the technical infrastructure required, and the associated investment in terminals and networks. From the analysis of the state-of-the art, it comes that various technologies are currently available on the European market, while mobile industry is gearing up to launch a wide variety of location services like tracking, alarming and locating.Nevertheless, when addressing safety of life as well as security applications, severe hurdles have to be posed in the light of existing technologies. Existing navigation (e.g. GPS) and communication systems are not able to completely satisfy the needs and requirements of safety-of-life-critical applications. As a matter of fact, the GPS system's main weaknesses today is its lack of integrity, which means its inability to warn users of a malfunction in a reasonable time, while the other positioning techniques do not provide satisfactory accuracy as well, and terrestrial communication networks are not capable to cope with stringent requirement in terms of service reliability and coverage.In this context, GAUSS proposes an innovative satellite-based solution using novel technology and effective tools for addressing mobility challenges in a cost efficient manner, improving safety and effectiveness.GAUSS (Galileo And UMTS Synergetic System) is a Research and Technological Development project co- funded by European Commission, within the frame of the 5th IST Programme. The project lasted two years, and it was successfully completed in November 2002. GAUSS key concept is the integration of Satellite Navigation GNSS and UMTS communication technology, to

The integrated design of building services by an equipped and eco-efficient module (MOTE2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roberto Giordano

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The targets set out by European Directives concerning the energy savings in the construction sector refer both to building envelope and to its services. With regard to building services it is mandatory meeting requirements related to heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation. Building services take up a variable space in the buildings that cannot be considered anymore negligible and they would always be fully integrated into buildings. Equipped and Eco-efficient Technological Module (MOTE2 is a research project aimed at implementing the integration in a unique services cupboard of some building services: heating and cooling; domestic hot water; mechanical ventilation. The project was organized according to four main phases. In phase 1 a set of rules was defined matching requirements related to the energy efficiency to environmental building design standards. During the phase 2 six building models were studied in order to size the corresponding building services according to scenario analysis set down for existing buildings. In phase 3 the project was focused on designing the assembly among services. The cupboard design is like a Tetris® game through the planning of the best combination among services shape. Based on the drawings developed a first mock-up was built up and monitored. Finally, in phase 4 the paper deals with the MOTE2’s expected performances. Outlook and some conclusions point out the future steps of the research activities.

Adolescent Maternal Lifecourse Outcomes: Implications from an Integrated Mental Health Services Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Beth S. Russell

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Family intervention literature on adolescent parenting describes the pathways between outcomes for adolescent mothers and their children and the contexts of the pregnancy itself (e.g., poverty, low or no prenatal care, lower educational attainment. The aim of these descriptions is often to inform intervention designs that promote adaptive functioning for the child, the mother, and the dyad. Mental health services are an important component of many of these interventions; these services may be delivered by a clinician within the organization providing the intervention, or the organization may connect mothers with external mental health services in their communities. Using in-house clinicians rather than external providers may be beneficial by decreasing the high attrition rates common to this population. Although this service delivery approach is theoretically appealing, it has not been subject to rigorous empirical evaluation. In the current randomized study, we examine outcomes for teenage mothers based on two service delivery methods: Integrated Mental Health Services (IMHS and the Standard of Care (SoC which outsources clients’ mental health needs through community referrals. Information about the effectiveness of service delivery strategies can help program providers make decisions about how best to allocate limited funds to provide effective services.

Pre-service teachers’ TPACK competencies for spreadsheet integration: insights from a mathematics-specific instructional technology course

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Agyei, D.D.; Voogt, J.M.

2015-01-01

This article explored the impact of strategies applied in a mathematics instructional technology course for developing technology integration competencies, in particular in the use of spreadsheets, in pre-service teachers. In this respect, 104 pre-service mathematics teachers from a teacher training

Exotic plant species receive adequate pollinator service despite variable integration into plant-pollinator networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Amibeth H; Knight, Tiffany M

2018-05-01

Both exotic and native plant species rely on insect pollinators for reproductive success, and yet few studies have evaluated whether and how exotic plant species receive services from native pollinators for successful reproduction in their introduced range. Plant species are expected to successfully reproduce in their exotic range if they have low reliance on animal pollinators or if they successfully integrate themselves into resident plant-pollinator networks. Here, we quantify the breeding system, network integration, and pollen limitation for ten focal exotic plant species in North America. Most exotic plant species relied on animal pollinators for reproduction, and these species varied in their network integration. However, plant reproduction was limited by pollen receipt for only one plant species. Our results demonstrate that even poorly integrated exotic plant species can still have high pollination service and high reproductive success. The comprehensive framework considered here provides a method to consider the contribution of plant breeding systems and the pollinator community to pollen limitation, and can be applied to future studies to provide a more synthetic understanding of the factors that determine reproductive success of exotic plant species.

Integrating traditional nursing service orientation content with electronic medical record orientation.

Science.gov (United States)

Harton, Brenda B; Borrelli, Larry; Knupp, Ann; Rogers, Necolen; West, Vickie R

2009-01-01

Traditional nursing service orientation classes at an acute care hospital were integrated with orientation to the electronic medical record to blend the two components in a user-friendly format so that the learner is introduced to the culture, processes, and documentation methods of the organization, with an opportunity to document online in a practice domain while lecture and discussion information is fresh.

Opportunities for and constraints to integration of health services in Poland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alicja Sobczak

2002-06-01

Full Text Available At the beginning of the article the typologies, expected outcomes and forces aiming at health care integration are discussed. Integration is recognised as a multidimensional concept. The suggested typologies of integration are based on structural configurations, co-ordination mechanisms (including clinical co-ordination, and driving forces. A review of the Polish experience in integration/disintegration of health care systems is the main part of the article. Creation of integrated health care management units (ZOZs in the beginning of the 1970s serves as an example of structural vertical integration missing co-ordination mechanisms. ZOZs as huge, costly and inflexible organisations became subjects of public criticism and discredited the idea of health care integration. At the end of the 1980s and in the decade of the 1990s, management of public health care was decentralised, the majority of ZOZs dismantled, and many health care public providers got the status of independent entities. The private sector developed rapidly. Sickness funds, which in 1999 replaced the previous state system, introduced “quasi-market” conditions where health providers have to compete for contracts. Some providers developed strategies of vertical and horizontal integration to get a competitive advantage. Consolidation of private ambulatory clinics, the idea of “integrated care” as a “contracting package”, development of primary health care and ambulatory specialist clinics in hospitals are the examples of such strategies. The new health policy declared in 2002 has recognised integration as a priority. It stresses the development of payment mechanisms and information base (Register of Health Services – RUM that promote integration. The Ministry of Health is involved directly in integrated emergency system designing. It seems that after years of disintegration and deregulation the need for effective integration has become obvious.

Improving service quality of hospital front office using an integrated Kano model and quality function deployment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anjar Priyono

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The aims of this study are twofold: first, it attempts to investigate service attributes in a hospital front office; and second, to identify strategies to improve those service attributes. Design/methodology/approach: This study used integration of Quality Function Deployment and Kano Model. The research instrument, which takes the SERVQUAL model as its starting point, was developed using a comprehensive set of techniques, including a literature review of relevant topics, interviews and focus group discussions. Using a sample of 140 customers of an international hospital situated in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 14 service attributes required by customers were identified. The attributes, which were further categorised into 5 attractive, 4 one-dimensional and 5 ‘must-be’ attributes, were analysed using the Kano Model. Findings: Using the integrated QFD and Kano Model, the service attributes needed for improvement were identified. The results are different from those when the company used either SERVQUAL or QFD alone. This study also reveals that benchmarking with competitor might produce misleading results. The results are different when the analysis combined a comprehensive method of QFD and Kano Model. Practical implications: Service providers will benefit from the findings of this study, as both the service attributes and technical requirements that require improvement as a priority are identified. Originality/value: It is the first time that front office quality of hospital is examined using integrated method of SERVQUAL, QFD and Kano Model. The recommendations proposed from this comprehensive method offer novel solution that has never been found in existing study.

Closed-Loop Lifecycle Management of Service and Product in the Internet of Things: Semantic Framework for Knowledge Integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Yoo, Min-Jung; Grozel, Clément; Kiritsis, Dimitris

2016-07-08

This paper describes our conceptual framework of closed-loop lifecycle information sharing for product-service in the Internet of Things (IoT). The framework is based on the ontology model of product-service and a type of IoT message standard, Open Messaging Interface (O-MI) and Open Data Format (O-DF), which ensures data communication. (1) BACKGROUND: Based on an existing product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology, we enhanced the ontology model for the purpose of integrating efficiently the product-service ontology model that was newly developed; (2) METHODS: The IoT message transfer layer is vertically integrated into a semantic knowledge framework inside which a Semantic Info-Node Agent (SINA) uses the message format as a common protocol of product-service lifecycle data transfer; (3) RESULTS: The product-service ontology model facilitates information retrieval and knowledge extraction during the product lifecycle, while making more information available for the sake of service business creation. The vertical integration of IoT message transfer, encompassing all semantic layers, helps achieve a more flexible and modular approach to knowledge sharing in an IoT environment; (4) Contribution: A semantic data annotation applied to IoT can contribute to enhancing collected data types, which entails a richer knowledge extraction. The ontology-based PLM model enables as well the horizontal integration of heterogeneous PLM data while breaking traditional vertical information silos; (5) CONCLUSION: The framework was applied to a fictive case study with an electric car service for the purpose of demonstration. For the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of the approach, the semantic model is implemented in Sesame APIs, which play the role of an Internet-connected Resource Description Framework (RDF) database.

Health systems facilitators and barriers to the integration of HIV and chronic disease services: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Watt, Nicola; Sigfrid, Louise; Legido-Quigley, Helena; Hogarth, Sue; Maimaris, Will; Otero-García, Laura; Perel, Pablo; Buse, Kent; McKee, Martin; Piot, Peter; Balabanova, Dina

2017-11-01

Integration of services for patients with more than one diagnosed condition has intuitive appeal but it has been argued that the empirical evidence to support it is limited. We report the findings of a systematic review that sought to identify health system factors, extrinsic to the integration process, which either facilitated or hindered the integration of services for two common disorders, HIV and chronic non-communicable diseases. Findings were initially extracted and organized around a health system framework, followed by a thematic cross-cutting analysis and validation steps. Of the 150 articles included, 67% (n = 102) were from high-income countries. The articles explored integration with services for one or several chronic disorders, the most studied being alcohol or substance use disorders (47.7%), and mental health issues (29.5%). Four cross-cutting themes related to the health system were identified. The first and most common theme was the requirement for effective collaboration and coordination: formal and informal productive relationships throughout the system between providers and within teams, and between staff and patients. The second was the need for adequate and appropriately skilled and incentivized health workers-with the right expertise, training and operational support for the programme. The third was the need for supportive institutional structures and dedicated resources. The fourth was leadership in terms of political will, effective managerial oversight and organizational culture, indicating that actual implementation is as important as programme design. A fifth theme, outside the health system, but underpinning all aspects of the system operation, was that placing the patient at the centre of service delivery and responding holistically to their diverse needs. This was an important facilitator of integration. These findings confirm that integration processes in service delivery depend substantially for their success on characteristics of

Service user integration into social work education: lessons learned from nordic participatory action projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Angelin, Anna

2015-01-01

Service users have lacked substantial influence, access, and participation in social work education in Norway and Sweden. In this article the author presents comparative analyses of two participatory projects that have developed and implemented practices that integrate service users into academic social work education and empower service users. The Norwegian HUSK project and the Social Work as Mobilization and Entrepreneurship course, also known as the "Mobilization course," at Lund University in Sweden demonstrate collaboration between research, social work education, and service users. The conclusions focus on the importance of the empowering processes by including recognition and dialogue, co-learning in practice, and the use of neutral venues to ensure effective user participation. The inclusion of service users in social work education can improve both practice and education.

Implementation and Evaluation of a JSON Binding for Mobile Web Services with IMS Integration Support

OpenAIRE

Murtaza, Shahid

2012-01-01

Service Oriented Architecture SOA is a well recognized and immensely applied reference model for service oriented computing, both in industry and research. Because of its fastidious features, such as reusability, interoperability, scalability and flexibility a Web Based SOA is adopted, in the areas like Enterprise Application Integration EAI. These days the Web Based Services, such as XML Web Services are not limited to fixed servers but can also be deployed on mobile devices in order to enha...

Integrated care services: lessons learned from the deployment of the NEXES project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carme Hernandez

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Objectives: To identify barriers to deployment of four articulated Integrated Care Services supported by Information Technologies in three European sites. The four services covered the entire spectrum of severity of illness. The project targeted chronic patients with obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiac failure and/or type II diabetes mellitus. Setting: One health care sector in Spain (Barcelona (n = 11.382; six municipalities in Norway (Trondheim (n = 450; and one hospital in Greece (Athens (n = 388. Method: The four services were: (i Home-based long-term maintenance of rehabilitation effects (n = 337; (ii Enhanced Care for frail patients, n = 1340; (iii Home Hospitalization and Early Discharge (n = 2404; and Support for remote diagnosis (forced spirometry testing in primary care (Support (n = 8139. Both randomized controlled trials and pragmatic study designs were combined. Two technological approaches were compared. The Model for Assessment of Telemedicine applications was adopted. Results: The project demonstrated: (i Sustainability of training effects over time in chronic patients with obstructive pulmonary disease (p < 0.01; (ii Enhanced care and fewer hospitalizations in chronic respiratory patients (p < 0.05; (iii Reduced in-hospital days for all types of patients (p < 0.001 in Home Hospitalization/Early Discharge; and (iv Increased quality of testing (p < 0.01 for patients with respiratory symptoms in Support, with marked differences among sites. Conclusions: The four integrated care services showed high potential to enhance health outcomes with cost-containment. Change management, technological approach and legal issues were major factors modulating the success of the deployment. The project generated a business plan to foster service sustainability and health innovation. Deployment strategies require site-specific adaptations.

Integrated care services: lessons learned from the deployment of the NEXES project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carme Hernandez

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Objectives: To identify barriers to deployment of four articulated Integrated Care Services supported by Information Technologies in three European sites. The four services covered the entire spectrum of severity of illness. The project targeted chronic patients with obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiac failure and/or type II diabetes mellitus.Setting: One health care sector in Spain (Barcelona (n = 11.382; six municipalities in Norway (Trondheim (n = 450; and one hospital in Greece (Athens (n = 388.Method: The four services were: (i Home-based long-term maintenance of rehabilitation effects (n = 337; (ii Enhanced Care for frail patients, n = 1340; (iii Home Hospitalization and Early Discharge (n = 2404; and Support for remote diagnosis (forced spirometry testing in primary care (Support (n = 8139. Both randomized controlled trials and pragmatic study designs were combined. Two technological approaches were compared. The Model for Assessment of Telemedicine applications was adopted.Results: The project demonstrated: (i Sustainability of training effects over time in chronic patients with obstructive pulmonary disease (p < 0.01; (ii Enhanced care and fewer hospitalizations in chronic respiratory patients (p < 0.05; (iii Reduced in-hospital days for all types of patients (p < 0.001 in Home Hospitalization/Early Discharge; and (iv Increased quality of testing (p < 0.01 for patients with respiratory symptoms in Support, with marked differences among sites.Conclusions: The four integrated care services showed high potential to enhance health outcomes with cost-containment. Change management, technological approach and legal issues were major factors modulating the success of the deployment. The project generated a business plan to foster service sustainability and health innovation. Deployment strategies require site-specific adaptations.

The Value of Partial Resource Pooling: Should a Service Network Be Integrated or Product-Focused?

OpenAIRE

Bar{\\i}\\c{s} Ata; Jan A. Van Mieghem

2009-01-01

We investigate how dynamic resource substitution in service systems impacts capacity requirements and responsiveness. Inspired by the contrasting network strategies of FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS), we study when two service classes (e.g., express or regular) should be served by dedicated resources (e.g., air or ground) or by an integrated network (e.g., air also serves regular). Using call center terminology, the question is whether to operate two independent queues or one N-network....

Modeling the impact of integrating HIV and outpatient health services on patient waiting times in an urban health clinic in Zambia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarang Deo

Full Text Available Rapid scale up of HIV treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa has refueled the long-standing health policy debate regarding the merits and drawbacks of vertical and integrated system. Recent pilots of integrating outpatient and HIV services have shown an improvement in some patient outcomes but deterioration in waiting times, which can lead to worse health outcomes in the long run.A pilot intervention involving integration of outpatient and HIV services in an urban primary care facility in Lusaka, Zambia was studied. Data on waiting time of patients during two seven-day periods before and six months after the integration were collected using a time and motion study. Statistical tests were conducted to investigate whether the two observation periods differed in operational details such as staffing, patient arrival rates, mix of patients etc. A discrete event simulation model was constructed to facilitate a fair comparison of waiting times before and after integration. The simulation model was also used to develop alternative configurations of integration and to estimate the resulting waiting times.Comparison of raw data showed that waiting times increased by 32% and 36% after integration for OPD and ART patients respectively (p<0.01. Using simulation modeling, we found that a large portion of this increase could be explained by changes in operational conditions before and after integration such as reduced staff availability (p<0.01 and longer breaks between consecutive patients (p<0.05. Controlling for these differences, integration of services, per se, would have resulted in a significant decrease in waiting times for OPD and a moderate decrease for HIV services.Integrating health services has the potential of reducing waiting times due to more efficient use of resources. However, one needs to ensure that other operational factors such as staff availability are not adversely affected due to integration.

REST-MapReduce: An Integrated Interface but Differentiated Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jong-Hyuk Park

2014-01-01

Full Text Available With the fast deployment of cloud computing, MapReduce architectures are becoming the major technologies for mobile cloud computing. The concept of MapReduce was first introduced as a novel programming model and implementation for a large set of computing devices. In this research, we propose a novel concept of REST-MapReduce, enabling users to use only the REST interface without using the MapReduce architecture. This approach provides a higher level of abstraction by integration of the two types of access interface, REST API and MapReduce. The motivation of this research stems from the slower response time for accessing simple RDBMS on Hadoop than direct access to RDMBS. This is because there is overhead to job scheduling, initiating, starting, tracking, and management during MapReduce-based parallel execution. Therefore, we provide a good performance for REST Open API service and for MapReduce, respectively. This is very useful for constructing REST Open API services on Hadoop hosting services, for example, Amazon AWS (Macdonald, 2005 or IBM Smart Cloud. For evaluating performance of our REST-MapReduce framework, we conducted experiments with Jersey REST web server and Hadoop. Experimental result shows that our approach outperforms conventional approaches.

Integrating Personalized and Community Services for Mobile Travel Planning and Management

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Chien-Chih

Personalized and community services have been noted as keys to enhance and facilitate e-tourism as well as mobile applications. This paper aims at proposing an integrated service framework for combining personalized and community functions to support mobile travel planning and management. Major mobile tourism related planning and decision support functions specified include personalized profile management, information search and notification, evaluation and recommendation, do-it-yourself planning and design, community and collaboration management, auction and negotiation, transaction and payment, as well as trip tracking and quality control. A system implementation process with an example prototype is also presented for illustrating the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed system framework, process model, and development methodology.

Implementing Information and Communication Technology to Support Community Aged Care Service Integration: Lessons from an Australian Aged Care Provider

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heather E Douglas

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: There is limited evidence of the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT to support integrated aged care services. Objectives: We undertook a case study to describe carelink+, a centralised client service management ICT system implemented by a large aged and community care service provider, Uniting. We sought to explicate the care-related information exchange processes associated with carelink+ and identify lessons for organisations attempting to use ICT to support service integration. Methods: Our case study included seventeen interviews and eleven observation sessions with a purposive sample of staff within the organisation. Inductive analysis was used to develop a model of ICT-supported information exchange. Results: Management staff described the integrated care model designed to underpin carelink+. Frontline staff described complex information exchange processes supporting coordination of client services. Mismatches between the data quality and the functions carelink+ was designed to support necessitated the evolution of new work processes associated with the system. Conclusions: There is value in explicitly modelling the work processes that emerge as a consequence of ICT. Continuous evaluation of the match between ICT and work processes will help aged care organisations to achieve higher levels of ICT maturity that support their efforts to provide integrated care to clients.

Implementing Information and Communication Technology to Support Community Aged Care Service Integration: Lessons from an Australian Aged Care Provider

Science.gov (United States)

Georgiou, Andrew; Tariq, Amina; Prgomet, Mirela; Warland, Andrew; Armour, Pauline; Westbrook, Johanna I

2017-01-01

Introduction: There is limited evidence of the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT) to support integrated aged care services. Objectives: We undertook a case study to describe carelink+, a centralised client service management ICT system implemented by a large aged and community care service provider, Uniting. We sought to explicate the care-related information exchange processes associated with carelink+ and identify lessons for organisations attempting to use ICT to support service integration. Methods: Our case study included seventeen interviews and eleven observation sessions with a purposive sample of staff within the organisation. Inductive analysis was used to develop a model of ICT-supported information exchange. Results: Management staff described the integrated care model designed to underpin carelink+. Frontline staff described complex information exchange processes supporting coordination of client services. Mismatches between the data quality and the functions carelink+ was designed to support necessitated the evolution of new work processes associated with the system. Conclusions: There is value in explicitly modelling the work processes that emerge as a consequence of ICT. Continuous evaluation of the match between ICT and work processes will help aged care organisations to achieve higher levels of ICT maturity that support their efforts to provide integrated care to clients. PMID:29042851

Eradicating Barriers to Mental Health Care Through Integrated Service Models: Contemporary Perspectives for Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Horace; Alexander, Vinette

2016-06-01

There has been renewed, global interest in developing new and transformative models of facilitating access to high-quality, cost-effective, and individually-centered health care for severe mentally-ill (SMI) persons of diverse racial/ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. However, in our present-day health-service delivery systems, scholars have identified layers of barriers to widespread dispersal of well-needed mental health care both nationally and internationally. It is crucial that contemporary models directed at eradicating barriers to mental health services are interdisciplinary in context, design, scope, sequence, and best-practice standards. Contextually, nurses are well-positioned to influence the incorporation and integration of new concepts into operationally interdisciplinary, evidence-based care models with measurable outcomes. The aim of this concept paper is to use the available evidence to contextually explicate how the blended roles of psychiatric mental health (PMH) nursing can be influential in eradicating barriers to care and services for SMI persons through the integrated principles of collaboration, integration and service expansion across health, socioeconomic, and community systems. A large body of literature proposes that any best-practice standards aimed at eliminating barriers to the health care needs of SMI persons require systematic, well-coordinated interdisciplinary partnerships through evidence-based, high-quality, person-centered, and outcome-driven processes. Transforming the conceptual models of collaboration, integration and service expansion could be revolutionary in how care and services are coordinated and dispersed to populations across disadvantaged communities. Building on their longstanding commitment to individual and community care approaches, and their pivotal roles in research, education, leadership, practice, and legislative processes; PMH nurses are well-positioned to be both influential and instrumental in

Occupational Health Services Integrated in Primary Health Care in Iran.

Science.gov (United States)

Rafiei, Masoud; Ezzatian, Reza; Farshad, Asghar; Sokooti, Maryam; Tabibi, Ramin; Colosio, Claudio

2015-01-01

A healthy workforce is vital for maintaining social and economic development on a global, national and local level. Around half of the world's people are economically active and spend at least one third of their time in their place of work while only 15% of workers have access to basic occupational health services. According to WHO report, since the early 1980s, health indicators in Iran have consistently improved, to the extent that it is comparable with those in developed countries. In this paper it was tried to briefly describe about Health care system and occupational Health Services as part of Primary Health care in Iran. To describe the health care system in the country and the status of occupational health services to the workers and employers, its integration into Primary Health Care (PHC) and outlining the challenges in provision of occupational health services to the all working population. Iran has fairly good health indicators. More than 85 percent of the population in rural and deprived regions, for instance, have access to primary healthcare services. The PHC centers provide essential healthcare and public-health services for the community. Providing, maintaining and improving of the workers' health are the main goals of occupational health services in Iran that are presented by different approaches and mostly through Workers' Houses in the PHC system. Iran has developed an extensive network of PHC facilities with good coverage in most rural areas, but there are still few remote areas that might suffer from inadequate services. It seems that there is still no transparent policy to collaborate with the private sector, train managers or provide a sustainable mechanism for improving the quality of services. Finally, strengthening national policies for health at work, promotion of healthy work and work environment, sharing healthy work practices, developing updated training curricula to improve human resource knowledge including occupational health

How In-Service Science Teachers Integrate History and Nature of Science in Elementary Science Courses

Science.gov (United States)

Hacieminoglu, Esme

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the in-service science teachers' (IST) perceptions and practices about curriculum and integration of the history of science (HOS) and the nature of science (NOS) affect their science courses. For this aim, how ISTs integrated the NOS and HOS in their elementary science courses for understanding of…

Integration of Tactical EMS in the National Park Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, William Will R

2017-06-01

The National Park Service (NPS) has domestic responsibility for emergency medical services (EMS) in remote and sometimes tactical situations in 417 units covering over 34 million hectares (84 million acres). The crossover between conflicting patient care priorities and complex medical decision making in the tactical, technical, and wilderness/remote environments often has many similarities. Patient care in these diverse locations, when compared with military settings, has slightly different variables but often similar corresponding risks to the patients and providers. The NPS developed a Tactical EMS (TEMS) program that closely integrated many principles from: 1) Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC); 2) Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC); 3) and other established federal and civilian TEMS programs. Combining these best practices into the NPS TEMS Program allowed for standardized training and implementation across not only the NPS, but also paralleled other military/federal/civilian TEMS programs. This synchronization is critical when an injury occurs in a joint tactical operation, either planned (drug interdiction) or unplanned (active shooter response), so that patient care can be uniform and efficient. The components identified for a sustainable TEMS program began with strong medical oversight, protocol development with defined phases of care, identifying specialized equipment, and organized implementation with trained TEMS instructors. Ongoing TEMS program management is continuously improving situationally appropriate training and integrating current best practices as new research, equipment, and tactics are developed. The NPS TEMS Program continues to provide ongoing training to ensure optimal patient care in tactical and other NPS settings. Copyright © 2017 Wilderness Medical Society. All rights reserved.

Modeling and Detecting Feature Interactions among Integrated Services of Home Network Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Igaki, Hiroshi; Nakamura, Masahide

This paper presents a framework for formalizing and detecting feature interactions (FIs) in the emerging smart home domain. We first establish a model of home network system (HNS), where every networked appliance (or the HNS environment) is characterized as an object consisting of properties and methods. Then, every HNS service is defined as a sequence of method invocations of the appliances. Within the model, we next formalize two kinds of FIs: (a) appliance interactions and (b) environment interactions. An appliance interaction occurs when two method invocations conflict on the same appliance, whereas an environment interaction arises when two method invocations conflict indirectly via the environment. Finally, we propose offline and online methods that detect FIs before service deployment and during execution, respectively. Through a case study with seven practical services, it is shown that the proposed framework is generic enough to capture feature interactions in HNS integrated services. We also discuss several FI resolution schemes within the proposed framework.

A convincing case for the provision of telemedicine services to ocean going vessels: the MERMAID paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Anogianakis, G; Maglavera, S

1998-01-01

MERMAID is an EU financed telemedicine project with global reach and 24-hour, multilingual capability. It aspires to provide a model for the provision of health care services based on the electronic transmission of medical information, via ISDN based videoconferencing. This model will not be limited to medical diagnostics but it will encompass all cases where the actual delivery of health care services involves a patient who is not located where the provider is. Its implementation requires the commissioning of an expensive telecommunications infrastructure and the exploration of a number of solutions. In fact, all categories of telemedical applications (audio and video conferencing, multimedia communications, flat file and image transfer with low, medium and high bandwidth data requirements) are considered while the full range of network choices (Digital land lines, Cellular/Wireless, Satellite and Broadband) are being tested in terms of cost/performance tradeoffs that are inherent to them and the developmental state each of these options occupies in their in its life cycle. Finally, out that MERMAID utilises advanced land based line transmission technologies to aid the remote patient by making available the specialist care that is best suited in the particular case.

Professional training in physiotherapy: barriers to the diversification of practical learning scenarios and for teaching-service integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Paula Maihack Gauer

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction: Professional training in health, at present, aims to develop competencies and skills for a performance according the principles of the Unified Health System (SUS, in Portuguese. In this sense, the Ministries of Health and Education have set up devices for training reorientation that prioritize teaching-service integration and diversification of learning scenarios. Objective: To describe barriers to the diversification of practical learning scenarios and for teaching-service integration in a physiotherapy course from the perspective of teachers and students. Methods: This is a qualitative research developed according to the case study method, with the participation of 16 students and 11 teachers-physiotherapists. During the data collection three focus groups were established, two with students and one with professors, besides individual interviews with both the course coordinator and the pedagogical articulator of the National Program for the Reorientation of Professional Health Training of the assessed course. Data were analyzed through thematic content analysis. Results: Among the identified barriers there are students’ low participation in public health services; saturation of public health services for students to carry out practical activities; low number of physiotherapists in Primary Care; indirect relationship of Clinical School with SUS. Conclusion: In order to improve the teaching-service interaction and to diversify the learning scenarios it is necessary to prioritize an integrated planning of actions to overcome identified barriers, including the participation of both the university managers and health services.

[European integration and health policies: repercussions of the internal European Market on access to health services].

Science.gov (United States)

Guimarães, Luisa; Giovanella, Lígia

2006-09-01

This article explores the health policy repercussions of countries' regional integration into the European Union. The aim is to review the regulation of access in other countries, with the conclusion of the single European market and the free circulation of persons, services, goods, and capital. The article begins by reviewing the various forms of integration and describes the expansion and institutionalization of Community agencies. The repercussions of European integration on health policies and regulation of access are analyzed. Market impacts on health result from Treaty directives and internal policy adjustments to free circulation. Health services access is gradually regulated and granted by rulings. Projects along borders illustrate the dynamics where differences are used to achieve comprehensive care. In the oldest integration experience, the market regulation has generated intentional and non-intentional impacts on the health policies of member states, regardless of the organizational model. Knowledge and analysis of this experience signals challenges for the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) and adds to future debates and decisions.

Analog integrated circuit for micro-gyro interface realized by multi-chip service in Japan; Multi chip service ni yoru micro gyro interface shuseki kairo no sekkei to shisaku

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maenaka, K.; Fujita, T.; Okamoto, K.; Maeda, M. [Himeji Institute of Technology, Hyogo (Japan)

1998-10-01

This paper deals with an analog integrated circuit for micro-machined gyroscopes with capacitive output. The Integrated circuit was fabricated as a part of the first project from the `Micromachining Multi-Chip Service Cooperative Re-search Committee` organized by The Institute of Electrical Engineers Japan. This multi-chip service project offers a master slice chip with an equivalent of 9 blocks of operational amplifier circuits. Our integrated circuit includes a modulator, demodulator and synchronous rectifier for detecting small changes in the capacitance of a silicon gyroscope. In the paper, the experimental results of fabricated samples will be described. 13 refs., 15 figs.

Pre-Service Teachers' TPACK Competencies for Spreadsheet Integration: Insights from a Mathematics-Specific Instructional Technology Course

Science.gov (United States)

Agyei, Douglas D.; Voogt, Joke M.

2015-01-01

This article explored the impact of strategies applied in a mathematics instructional technology course for developing technology integration competencies, in particular in the use of spreadsheets, in pre-service teachers. In this respect, 104 pre-service mathematics teachers from a teacher training programme in Ghana enrolled in the mathematics…

Integration of social media with healthcare big data for improved service delivery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sibulela Mgudlwa

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Background: In the last decade, social media users across the world have crossed 1 billion, making it one of the fastest growing sources of big data. Also, people needing healthcare continue to increase in every society. Through accessibility, communication and interaction between health practitioners and patients, this type of ever-growing, social media subscriber–based platform can be of significant use in improving healthcare delivery to society. However, users encounter serious challenges in their attempts to make use of social media and big data for health-related services. The challenges are primarily caused by factors such as integration, complexity, security and privacy. The challenges are mainly owing to the sensitive nature of the healthcare environment, as a result of personalisation and privacy of information.   Objectives: The objectives of the study were to examine and gain a better understanding of the complexities that are associated with the use of social media and healthcare big data, through influencing factors, and to develop a framework that can be used to improve health-related services to the patients.   Methods: The interpretivist approach was employed, within which qualitative data were collected. This included documents and existing literature in the areas of social media and healthcare big data. To have a good spread of both previous and current state of events within the phenomena being studied, literature published between 2006 and 2016 were gathered. The data were interpretively analysed.   Results: Based on the analysis of the data, factors of influence were found, which were used to develop a model. The model illustrates how the factors of influence can enable and at the same time constrain the use of social media for healthcare services. The factors were interpreted from which a framework was developed. The framework is intended to guide integration of social media with healthcare big data through which

Closed-Loop Lifecycle Management of Service and Product in the Internet of Things: Semantic Framework for Knowledge Integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Min-Jung Yoo

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This paper describes our conceptual framework of closed-loop lifecycle information sharing for product-service in the Internet of Things (IoT. The framework is based on the ontology model of product-service and a type of IoT message standard, Open Messaging Interface (O-MI and Open Data Format (O-DF, which ensures data communication. (1 Background: Based on an existing product lifecycle management (PLM methodology, we enhanced the ontology model for the purpose of integrating efficiently the product-service ontology model that was newly developed; (2 Methods: The IoT message transfer layer is vertically integrated into a semantic knowledge framework inside which a Semantic Info-Node Agent (SINA uses the message format as a common protocol of product-service lifecycle data transfer; (3 Results: The product-service ontology model facilitates information retrieval and knowledge extraction during the product lifecycle, while making more information available for the sake of service business creation. The vertical integration of IoT message transfer, encompassing all semantic layers, helps achieve a more flexible and modular approach to knowledge sharing in an IoT environment; (4 Contribution: A semantic data annotation applied to IoT can contribute to enhancing collected data types, which entails a richer knowledge extraction. The ontology-based PLM model enables as well the horizontal integration of heterogeneous PLM data while breaking traditional vertical information silos; (5 Conclusion: The framework was applied to a fictive case study with an electric car service for the purpose of demonstration. For the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of the approach, the semantic model is implemented in Sesame APIs, which play the role of an Internet-connected Resource Description Framework (RDF database.

Closed-Loop Lifecycle Management of Service and Product in the Internet of Things: Semantic Framework for Knowledge Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Yoo, Min-Jung; Grozel, Clément; Kiritsis, Dimitris

2016-01-01

This paper describes our conceptual framework of closed-loop lifecycle information sharing for product-service in the Internet of Things (IoT). The framework is based on the ontology model of product-service and a type of IoT message standard, Open Messaging Interface (O-MI) and Open Data Format (O-DF), which ensures data communication. (1) Background: Based on an existing product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology, we enhanced the ontology model for the purpose of integrating efficiently the product-service ontology model that was newly developed; (2) Methods: The IoT message transfer layer is vertically integrated into a semantic knowledge framework inside which a Semantic Info-Node Agent (SINA) uses the message format as a common protocol of product-service lifecycle data transfer; (3) Results: The product-service ontology model facilitates information retrieval and knowledge extraction during the product lifecycle, while making more information available for the sake of service business creation. The vertical integration of IoT message transfer, encompassing all semantic layers, helps achieve a more flexible and modular approach to knowledge sharing in an IoT environment; (4) Contribution: A semantic data annotation applied to IoT can contribute to enhancing collected data types, which entails a richer knowledge extraction. The ontology-based PLM model enables as well the horizontal integration of heterogeneous PLM data while breaking traditional vertical information silos; (5) Conclusion: The framework was applied to a fictive case study with an electric car service for the purpose of demonstration. For the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of the approach, the semantic model is implemented in Sesame APIs, which play the role of an Internet-connected Resource Description Framework (RDF) database. PMID:27399717

Integrated specialty service readiness in health reform: connections in haemophilia comprehensive care.

Science.gov (United States)

Pritchard, A M; Page, D

2008-05-01

The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified primary healthcare reform as a global priority whereby innovative practice changes are directed at improving health. This transformation to health reform in haemophilia service requires clarification of comprehensive care to reflect the WHO definition of health and key elements of primary healthcare reform. While comprehensive care supports effective healthcare delivery, comprehensive care must also be regarded beyond immediate patient management to reflect the broader system purpose in the care continuum with institutions, community agencies and government. Furthermore, health reform may be facilitated through integrated service delivery (ISD). ISD in specialty haemophilia care has the potential to reduce repetition of assessments, enhance care plan communication between providers and families, provide 24-h access to care, improve information availability regarding care quality and outcomes, consolidate access for multiple healthcare encounters and facilitate family self-efficacy and autonomy [1]. Three core aspects of ISD have been distinguished: clinical integration, information management and technology and vertical integration in local communities [2]. Selected examples taken from Canadian haemophilia comprehensive care illustrate how practice innovations are bridged with a broader system level approach and may support initiatives in other contexts. These innovations are thought to indicate readiness regarding ISD. Reflecting on the existing capacity of haemophilia comprehensive care teams will assist providers to connect and direct their existing strengths towards ISD and health reform.

Adapting the Quebecois method for assessing implementation to the French National Alzheimer Plan 2008–2012: lessons for gerontological services integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dominique Somme

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Many countries face ageing-related demographic and epidemiological challenges, notably neurodegenerative disorders, due to the multiple care services they require, thereby pleading for a more integrated system of care. The integrated Quebecois method issued from the Programme of Research to Integrate Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy inspired a French pilot experiment and the National Alzheimer Plan 2008–2012. Programme of Research to Integrate Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy method implementation was rated with an evaluation grid adapted to assess its successive degrees of completion.Discussion: The approaching end of the president's term led to the method's institutionalization (2011–2012, before the implementation study ended. When the government changed, the study was interrupted. The results extracted from that ‘lost’ study (presented herein have, nonetheless, ‘found’ some key lessons.Key lessons/conclusion: It was possible to implement a Quebecois integrated-care method in France. We describe the lessons and pitfalls encountered in adapting this evaluation tool. This process is necessarily multidisciplinary and requires a test phase. A simple tool for quantitative assessment of integration was obtained. The first assessment of the tool was unsatisfactory but requires further studies. In the meantime, we recommend using mixed methodologies to assess the services integration level.

Adapting the Quebecois method for assessing implementation to the French National Alzheimer Plan 2008–2012: lessons for gerontological services integration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dominique Somme

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Many countries face ageing-related demographic and epidemiological challenges, notably neurodegenerative disorders, due to the multiple care services they require, thereby pleading for a more integrated system of care. The integrated Quebecois method issued from the Programme of Research to Integrate Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy inspired a French pilot experiment and the National Alzheimer Plan 2008–2012. Programme of Research to Integrate Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy method implementation was rated with an evaluation grid adapted to assess its successive degrees of completion. Discussion: The approaching end of the president's term led to the method's institutionalization (2011–2012, before the implementation study ended. When the government changed, the study was interrupted. The results extracted from that ‘lost’ study (presented herein have, nonetheless, ‘found’ some key lessons. Key lessons/conclusion: It was possible to implement a Quebecois integrated-care method in France. We describe the lessons and pitfalls encountered in adapting this evaluation tool. This process is necessarily multidisciplinary and requires a test phase. A simple tool for quantitative assessment of integration was obtained. The first assessment of the tool was unsatisfactory but requires further studies. In the meantime, we recommend using mixed methodologies to assess the services integration level.

Towards Internet of Things (IOTS):Integration of Wireless Sensor Network to Cloud Services for Data Collection and Sharing

OpenAIRE

Piyare, Rajeev; Lee, Seong Ro

2013-01-01

Cloud computing provides great benefits for applications hosted on the Web that also have special computational and storage requirements. This paper proposes an extensible and flexible architecture for integrating Wireless Sensor Networks with the Cloud. We have used REST based Web services as an interoperable application layer that can be directly integrated into other application domains for remote monitoring such as e-health care services, smart homes, or even vehicular area networks (VAN)...

What Impact Does Behavior of Doctors and Patients on Service Integration of Multi-institutional Readmission cross Township—county Hospitals in Rural China

OpenAIRE

Zhang, Yan; Tang, Wenxi; Zhang, Liang

2017-01-01

Background: With the change of rural residents’ disease spectrum and patients with chronic diseases boom, multi-institutional health service utilization of rural residents and the continuous service demands are growing sharply in rural China.Objective: Evaluate the service integration of multi-institutional readmission cross township—county hospitals (MRCTCH) in rural China, and figure out determines of service integration.Methods: This study featured 7 sample counties in rural China. Based o...

Proposal of a service delivery integration index of home care for older persons: application in several European cities.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Henrard, J.C.; Ankri, J.; Frijters, D.; Carpenter, I.; Topinkova, E.; Garms-Homolova, V.; Finne-Soveri, H.; Wergeland Sorbye, L.; Jonsson, P.V.; Ljunggren, G.; Schroll, M.; Wagner, C.; Bernabei, R.

2006-01-01

PURPOSE: To propose an integration index of home care delivery to older persons, to study its validity and to apply it to home care services of European cities. THEORY: Home care delivery integration was based on two dimensions referring to process-centred integration and organisational structure

Preparing Pre-Service Teachers to Teach Primary Science: An Integrated Approach Using the Theme of Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

King, Donna

2014-01-01

An integrated approach to assessment afforded pre-service teachers the opportunity to learn about a local sustainability issue through three learning areas: science and technology, the arts and studies of society and environment (SOSE). Three sustainability issues chosen by the pre-service teachers are presented in this paper highlighting the…

Integrated Automatic Workflow for Phylogenetic Tree Analysis Using Public Access and Local Web Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Damkliang, Kasikrit; Tandayya, Pichaya; Sangket, Unitsa; Pasomsub, Ekawat

2016-11-28

At the present, coding sequence (CDS) has been discovered and larger CDS is being revealed frequently. Approaches and related tools have also been developed and upgraded concurrently, especially for phylogenetic tree analysis. This paper proposes an integrated automatic Taverna workflow for the phylogenetic tree inferring analysis using public access web services at European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), and our own deployed local web services. The workflow input is a set of CDS in the Fasta format. The workflow supports 1,000 to 20,000 numbers in bootstrapping replication. The workflow performs the tree inferring such as Parsimony (PARS), Distance Matrix - Neighbor Joining (DIST-NJ), and Maximum Likelihood (ML) algorithms of EMBOSS PHYLIPNEW package based on our proposed Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) similarity score. The local web services are implemented and deployed into two types using the Soaplab2 and Apache Axis2 deployment. There are SOAP and Java Web Service (JWS) providing WSDL endpoints to Taverna Workbench, a workflow manager. The workflow has been validated, the performance has been measured, and its results have been verified. Our workflow's execution time is less than ten minutes for inferring a tree with 10,000 replicates of the bootstrapping numbers. This paper proposes a new integrated automatic workflow which will be beneficial to the bioinformaticians with an intermediate level of knowledge and experiences. All local services have been deployed at our portal http://bioservices.sci.psu.ac.th.

General practice, primary care, and health service psychology: concepts, competencies, and the Combined-Integrated model.

Science.gov (United States)

Schulte, Timothy J; Isley, Elayne; Link, Nancy; Shealy, Craig N; Winfrey, LaPearl Logan

2004-10-01

The profession of psychology is being impacted profoundly by broader changes within the national system of health care, as mental and behavioral health services are being recognized as essential components of a comprehensive, preventive, and cost-efficient primary care system. To fully define and embrace this role, the discipline of professional psychology must develop a shared disciplinary identity of health service psychology and a generalized competency-based model for doctoral education and training. This very framework has been adopted by Combined-Integrated (C-I) doctoral programs in professional psychology, which train across the practice areas (clinical, counseling, and school psychology) to provide a general and integrative foundation for their students. Because C-I programs produce general practitioners who are competent to function within a variety of health service settings, this innovative training approach has great potential to educate and train psychologists for a changing health care marketplace. Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Integrated Services Management System (ISMS): A management and decision making tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barber, D.S.; Brockman, D.L.; Buxton, L.D. [and others

1995-10-01

This document provides information concerning the Integrated Services Management System (ISMS) that was developed for the Laboratories Services Division during the period February 1994 through May 1995. ISMS was developed as a formal method for centralized management of programs within the Division. With minor modifications, this system can be adapted for management of all overhead functions at SNL or for sector level program management. Included in this document are the reasons for the creation of this system as well as the resulting benefits. The ISMS consists of six interlinked processes; Issues Management, Task/Activity Planning, Work Decision, Commitment Management, Process/Project Management, and Performance Assessment. Those processes are described in detail within this document. Additionally, lessons learned and suggestions for future improvements are indicated.

Methodology for calculating perception of the user experience of the quality of monitored integrated telecommunications operator services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

2011-01-01

The invention relates to a method for calculating perception of the user experience of the quality of monitored integrated telecommunications operator services. For this purpose, data from the monitoring of user services is used, along with questionnaires previously completed by a representative

Mitigation for one & all: An integrated framework for mitigation of development impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tallis, Heather, E-mail: htallis@tnc.org [The Nature Conservancy, 415 Alta Vista Dr., Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (United States); Kennedy, Christina M., E-mail: ckennedy@tnc.org [The Nature Conservancy, 117 East Mountain Ave., Ft. Collins, CO 80524 (United States); Ruckelshaus, Mary [The Natural Capital Project, 371 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States); Goldstein, Joshua; Kiesecker, Joseph M. [The Nature Conservancy, 117 East Mountain Ave., Ft. Collins, CO 80524 (United States)

2015-11-15

Emerging development policies and lending standards call for consideration of ecosystem services when mitigating impacts from development, yet little guidance exists to inform this process. Here we propose a comprehensive framework for advancing both biodiversity and ecosystem service mitigation. We have clarified a means for choosing representative ecosystem service targets alongside biodiversity targets, identified servicesheds as a useful spatial unit for assessing ecosystem service avoidance, impact, and offset options, and discuss methods for consistent calculation of biodiversity and ecosystem service mitigation ratios. We emphasize the need to move away from area- and habitat-based assessment methods for both biodiversity and ecosystem services towards functional assessments at landscape or seascape scales. Such comprehensive assessments more accurately reflect cumulative impacts and variation in environmental quality, social needs and value preferences. The integrated framework builds on the experience of biodiversity mitigation while addressing the unique opportunities and challenges presented by ecosystem service mitigation. These advances contribute to growing potential for economic development planning and execution that will minimize impacts on nature and maximize human wellbeing. - Highlights: • This is the first framework for biodiversity and ecosystem service mitigation. • Functional, landscape scale assessments are ideal for avoidance and offsets. • Servicesheds define the appropriate spatial extent for ecosystem service mitigation. • Mitigation ratios should be calculated consistently and based on standard factors. • Our framework meets the needs of integrated mitigation assessment requirements.

Mitigation for one & all: An integrated framework for mitigation of development impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tallis, Heather; Kennedy, Christina M.; Ruckelshaus, Mary; Goldstein, Joshua; Kiesecker, Joseph M.

2015-01-01

Emerging development policies and lending standards call for consideration of ecosystem services when mitigating impacts from development, yet little guidance exists to inform this process. Here we propose a comprehensive framework for advancing both biodiversity and ecosystem service mitigation. We have clarified a means for choosing representative ecosystem service targets alongside biodiversity targets, identified servicesheds as a useful spatial unit for assessing ecosystem service avoidance, impact, and offset options, and discuss methods for consistent calculation of biodiversity and ecosystem service mitigation ratios. We emphasize the need to move away from area- and habitat-based assessment methods for both biodiversity and ecosystem services towards functional assessments at landscape or seascape scales. Such comprehensive assessments more accurately reflect cumulative impacts and variation in environmental quality, social needs and value preferences. The integrated framework builds on the experience of biodiversity mitigation while addressing the unique opportunities and challenges presented by ecosystem service mitigation. These advances contribute to growing potential for economic development planning and execution that will minimize impacts on nature and maximize human wellbeing. - Highlights: • This is the first framework for biodiversity and ecosystem service mitigation. • Functional, landscape scale assessments are ideal for avoidance and offsets. • Servicesheds define the appropriate spatial extent for ecosystem service mitigation. • Mitigation ratios should be calculated consistently and based on standard factors. • Our framework meets the needs of integrated mitigation assessment requirements

Does service integration improve technical quality of care in low-resource settings? An evaluation of a model integrating HIV care into family planning services in Kenya.

Science.gov (United States)

Mutemwa, Richard; Mayhew, Susannah H; Warren, Charlotte E; Abuya, Timothy; Ndwiga, Charity; Kivunaga, Jackline

2017-11-01

The aim of this study was to investigate association between HIV and family planning integration and technical quality of care. The study focused on technical quality of client-provider consultation sessions. The cross-sectional study observed 366 client-provider consultation sessions and interviewed 37 health care providers in 12 public health facilities in Kenya. Multilevel random intercept and linear regression models were fitted to the matched data to investigate relationships between service integration and technical quality of care as well as associations between facility-level structural and provider factors and technical quality of care. A sensitivity analysis was performed to test for hidden bias. After adjusting for facility-level structural factors, HIV/family planning integration was found to have significant positive effect on technical quality of the consultation session, with average treatment effect 0.44 (95% CI: 0.63-0.82). Three of the 12 structural factors were significantly positively associated with technical quality of consultation session including: availability of family planning commodities (9.64; 95% CI: 5.07-14.21), adequate infrastructure (5.29; 95% CI: 2.89-7.69) and reagents (1.48; 95% CI: 1.02-1.93). Three of the nine provider factors were significantly positively associated with technical quality of consultation session: appropriate provider clinical knowledge (3.14; 95% CI: 1.92-4.36), job satisfaction (2.02; 95% CI: 1.21-2.83) and supervision (1.01; 95% CI: 0.35-1.68), while workload (-0.88; 95% CI: -1.75 to - 0.01) was negatively associated. Technical quality of the client-provider consultation session was also determined by duration of the consultation and type of clinic visit and appeared to depend on whether the clinic visit occurred early or later in the week. Integration of HIV care into family planning services can improve the technical quality of client-provider consultation sessions as measured by both health facility

The different services carried out on valves during nuclear power plants refuelling outages. To the Valves Integrated Service; La gestion de las diferentes actividades en valvulas durante las paradas. Hacia el Servicio Integral de Valvulas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Laporta, J. M.

2007-07-01

The different services carried out on valves during nuclear power plants refuelling outages represent overall one of the activities most interfacing with other refuelling tasks because of the large multidisciplinary teams that participate. Different specialized teams are involved on these activities, mainly on testing, diagnostics and maintenance tasks, performed over the same components, in a sequence of processes closely related with common resources. Under such circumstances, coordination between the different teams intervening and the management of administrative documents and activities in close collaboration with the Control Room is fundamental to ensure that the work is performed in the right sequence avoiding downtimes and optimising the critical path. The integration of these processes and the resources involved allow us to undertake the services globally, forming multidisciplinary teams that optimise resources-fundamentally coordination resources and multi-purpose auxiliary resources-maintaining in all cases the necessary degree of specialisation in keeping with the different tasks making up the Valves Integrated Service. (Author)

Towards Service-Oriented Middleware for Fog and Cloud Integrated Cyber Physical Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mohamed, Nader; Lazarova-Molnar, Sanja; Jawhar, Imad

2017-01-01

enables the integration of CPS with other systems such as Cloud and Fog Computing. Furthermore, as CPS can be developed for various applications at different scales, this paper provides a classification for CPS applications and discusses how CPSWare can effectively deal with the different issues in each...... of the applications. An appropriate middleware is needed to provide infrastructural support and assist the development and operations of diverse CPS applications. This paper studies utilizing the service-oriented middleware (SOM) approach for CPS and discusses the advantages and requirements for such utilization....... In addition, it proposes an SOM for CPS, called CPSWare. This middleware views all CPS components as a set of services and provides a service-based infrastructure to develop and operate CPS applications. This approach provides systemic solutions for solving many computing and networking issues in CPS. It also...

Developing Pre-Service Teachers' Subject Matter Knowledge of Electromagnetism by Integrating Concept Maps and Collaborative Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Govender, Nadaraj

2015-01-01

This case study explored the development of two pre-service teachers' subject matter knowledge (SMK) of electromagnetism while integrating the use of concept maps (CM) and collaborative learning (CL) strategies. The study aimed at capturing how these pre-service teachers' SMK in electromagnetism was enhanced after having been taught SMK in a…

Social integration, a sense of belonging and the Cenotaph Service: old soldiers reminisce about Remembrance.

Science.gov (United States)

Barron, Duncan S; Davies, Stephen P; Wiggins, Richard D

2008-07-01

This study explored how war commemorations such as the Cenotaph Service in the UK enable older veterans to benefit from a feeling of integration and belonging gained from both comradeship and acknowledgement from wider society. Focus groups preceded by a video clip of the Cenotaph Service with 45 veterans were used to discuss the significance of collective commemorations for older veterans. Findings indicated that social integration and a sense of belonging are fostered both by comradeship and societal support during collective commemorations allowing veterans to reminisce safely. Spontaneous reminiscences involving troubling memories may be processed more easily with the support, social integration and sense of belonging which occurs at collective commemorations. Many Korean War and female World War II veterans felt forgotten and socially isolated, but described gaining vicarious support via collective commemorations. Cohen and Wills' (1985) main-effects and buffering models of social support are used to discuss the findings further. Collective commemorations can be important sources of support for many older veterans. Both comradeship and societal support promote social integration and a sense of belonging (main-effects), which enabled reminiscing and processing (buffering) to occur.

Integration of evidence-based and experience-based design: contributions from a study in a health care service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mirela S. da Rosa

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose this paper is to present an integrated study of Service Design and the Mechanism of the Production Function (MPF for redesigning the health care services to improve the perceived value of the patient and increase the productivity of hospital operations by eliminating wastes. The method used was action research and applied in an ICU of a private hospital in southern Brazil. The techniques of participant observation, interviews, archival research and meetings co-creation with a team of the hospital were used to collect data. Data were analyzed through content analysis of the interviews and the Design Service and Production Engineering tools. Evidence based approaches tends to contribute to the replication of the project outcomes in future cases. The MPF can support project development in the field of Design, as well the integrated approach developed in the healthcare sector, helped to devote more time to the phases of diagnosis and implementation. The findings are useful to demonstrate that can use simultaneously approaches the Service Design and MPF for the development of more robust solutions in health care environment. Further research could be done in other private or public hospitals as well as in other hospital units besides the ICUs. Limitations include the work done in a single hospital and service unit, data collected from a small group of people in the hospital. Integrating Evidence-Based Design, Experience-Based Design and the MPF can produce a more robust way to justify and define the focus of improvements in health care services.

SBMLmod: a Python-based web application and web service for efficient data integration and model simulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Schäuble, Sascha; Stavrum, Anne-Kristin; Bockwoldt, Mathias; Puntervoll, Pål; Heiland, Ines

2017-06-24

Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) is the standard model representation and description language in systems biology. Enriching and analysing systems biology models by integrating the multitude of available data, increases the predictive power of these models. This may be a daunting task, which commonly requires bioinformatic competence and scripting. We present SBMLmod, a Python-based web application and service, that automates integration of high throughput data into SBML models. Subsequent steady state analysis is readily accessible via the web service COPASIWS. We illustrate the utility of SBMLmod by integrating gene expression data from different healthy tissues as well as from a cancer dataset into a previously published model of mammalian tryptophan metabolism. SBMLmod is a user-friendly platform for model modification and simulation. The web application is available at http://sbmlmod.uit.no , whereas the WSDL definition file for the web service is accessible via http://sbmlmod.uit.no/SBMLmod.wsdl . Furthermore, the entire package can be downloaded from https://github.com/MolecularBioinformatics/sbml-mod-ws . We envision that SBMLmod will make automated model modification and simulation available to a broader research community.

Integrated Model of Customers’ Satisfaction and Loyality: A Business Analysis of Banking Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rachmad Hidayat

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to determine the relationships of service quality, bank’s image, customer value and product quality with customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Sample is the state-owned banks’ customers in four major cities in Indonesia. Data is analyzed by using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM method. Results lead to an integrated model of customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. In conclusion, customer value and quality of bank products do not significantly and directly affect customer loyalty, but do significantly affect customer loyalty mediated by customer satisfaction. Service quality and bank’s image directly and indirectly affects customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Service quality and bank’s image have the strongest and most dominant effects on customer loyalty.

Integration of family planning services into HIV care and treatment in Kenya: a cluster-randomized trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Grossman, Daniel; Onono, Maricianah; Newmann, Sara J; Blat, Cinthia; Bukusi, Elizabeth A; Shade, Starley B; Steinfeld, Rachel L; Cohen, Craig R

2013-10-01

To determine whether integrating family planning services into HIV care is associated with increased use of more effective contraceptive methods (sterilization, intrauterine device, implant, injectable or oral contraceptives). Cluster-randomized trial. Eighteen public HIV clinics in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Women aged 18-45 years receiving care at participating HIV clinics; 5682 clinical encounters from baseline period (December 2009-February 2010) and 12,531 encounters from end-line period (July 2011-September 2011, 1 year after site training). Twelve sites were randomized to integrate family planning services into the HIV clinic, whereas six clinics were controls where clients desiring contraception were referred to family planning clinics at the same facility. Increase in use of more effective contraceptive methods between baseline and end-line periods. Pregnancy rates during the follow-up year (October 2010-September 2011) were also compared. Women seen at integrated sites were significantly more likely to use more effective contraceptive methods at the end of the study [increased from 16.7 to 36.6% at integrated sites, compared to increase from 21.1 to 29.8% at controls; odds ratio (OR) 1.81, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.24-2.63]. Condom use decreased non-significantly at intervention sites compared to controls (OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.35-1.19). No difference was observed in incident pregnancy in the first year after integration comparing intervention to control sites (incidence rate ratio 0.90; 95% CI 0.68-1.20). Integration of family planning services into HIV care clinics increased use of more effective contraceptive methods with a non-significant reduction in condom use. Although no significant reduction in pregnancy incidence was observed during the study, 1 year may be too short a period of observation for this outcome.

Implementing integrated services for people with epilepsy in primary care in Ethiopia: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Catalao, Raquel; Eshetu, Tigist; Tsigebrhan, Ruth; Medhin, Girmay; Fekadu, Abebaw; Hanlon, Charlotte

2018-05-21

In order to tackle the considerable treatment gap for epilepsy in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), a task sharing model is recommended whereby care is integrated into primary health services. However, there are limited data on implementation and impact of such services in LMICs. Our study aimed to explore the perspectives of service users and caregivers on the accessibility, experience and perceived impact of epilepsy treatment received in a task-shared model in a rural district of Ethiopia. A qualitative study was carried out using interviews with purposively sampled service users (n = 13) and caregivers (n = 3) from a community-ascertained cohort of people with epilepsy receiving integrated services in primary care in rural Ethiopia. Interviews followed a topic guide with questions regarding acceptability, satisfaction, barriers to access care, pathways through care and impact of services. Framework analysis was employed to analyse the data. Proximity of the new service in local primary health centers decreased the cost of transportation for the majority of service users thus improving access to services. First-hand experience of services was in some cases associated with a willingness to promote the services and inform others of the existence of effective biomedical treatment for epilepsy. However, most service users and their caregivers continued to seek help from traditional healers alongside biomedical care. Most of the care received was focused on medication provision with limited information provided on how to manage their illness and its effects. Caregivers and service users spoke about the high emotional and financial burden of the disease and lack of ongoing practical and emotional support. The majority of participants reported clinical improvement on medication, which in over half of the participants was associated with ability to return to money generating activities. Task-sharing improved the accessibility of epilepsy care for