From piles to tiles: designing for overview and control in case handling systems

Poor overview and control of workload in electronic case handling systems is a potential health risk factor which affects the users. Case handling systems must therefore be designed to give the users a better overview and maximum control over their workload. In an earlier study, we developed a prototype interface for managing cases, based on the piles metaphor. This paper introduces a second prototype, which is designed to incorporate the findings of an evaluation of the piles metaphor prototype. In this second prototype cases are visualized as “tiles”, reflecting the number and complexity of the cases. This paper also describes some the results of the evaluation of the tiles prototype

Handling Attrition in Longitudinal Studies: The Case for Refreshment Samples

Panel studies typically suffer from attrition, which reduces sample size and can result in biased inferences. It is impossible to know whether or not the attrition causes bias from the observed panel data alone. Refreshment samples - new, randomly sampled respondents given the questionnaire at the same time as a subsequent wave of the panel - offer information that can be used to diagnose and adjust for bias due to attrition. We review and bolster the case for the use of refreshment samples in panel studies. We include examples of both a fully Bayesian approach for analyzing the concatenated panel and refreshment data, and a multiple imputation approach for analyzing only the original panel. For the latter, we document a positive bias in the usual multiple imputation variance estimator. We present models appropriate for three waves and two refreshment samples, including nonterminal attrition. We illustrate the three-wave analysis using the 2007-2008 Associated Press-Yahoo! News Election Poll.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-STS414 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Pemantauan Penanganan Kasus Balita Gizi Buruk dengan Menggunakan Sistem Informasi Spasial di Kota Banda Aceh

Nutrition problem contributes to the death rate of toddler. In Aceh Province during 2013, there are 855 toddlers suffering malnutrition and only 14,04% of them recovered, 2,46% died and there are still 714 more toddlers under treatment.Qualitative descriptive research with observational design through action research approach using Geographical Information System (GIS) are carried out in the city of Banda Aceh where the sample of children with malnutrition are obtained from the result of nutrient status monitoring, weighing routine data in posyandu, investigation of the health facilities and the report from society. The collected dependent data variables are children with severe malnutrition and malnourished children, the residence location of the research subjects, the work place of the nutrient management employee, the community health center (puskesmas) and serving fasilities of children with severe malnutrition by Global Positioning System (GPS).The distribution pattern and regions prone to children with malnutrition are concentrated in Kecamatan Kuta Raja, Kecamatan Meuraxa and Kecamatan Ule Kareng. In those districts, the number of children with severe malnutrition is above 0,6% and the number of malnourished children is also above 1,5% of the minimum tolerance number of children set by the City Health Department of Banda Aceh. The percentage of the weighed children to the number of target (D/S) for those districts is in between 53,7% to 69,5%. The number of recovered children after being treated is 7,2%, while 0,9% are died and 9,9% of the children with severe malnutrition are dropped out. The number and the distribution of nutrient management employee are not sufficient and they are not well trained with 21,2% of the posyandu are active. In the other hand, the number and the distribution of puskesmas and hospital are fairly equally distributed throughout Banda Aceh. The development of severe malnutrition children monitoring management information system creates the information of improvement of children with severe malnutrition, distribution map of nutritional cases, the distribution of human resources and the health facilities, and produces a report of success coverage of nutritional program indicator.The distribution pattern and regions prone to malnutrition are distributed in the coastal area and in the city border which are slum and poor region. The regions also suffer low quantity and quality of nutrient officer, limited operational infrastructure, and only few posyandu are active . The severe malnutrition children monitoring management information system can help through evaluating the improvement of the children's recovery and it can also produce various information needed

Handling Default Risks in Microfinance: The Case of Bangladesh

Despite the current enthusiasms in applying the concept of microfinance as a poverty alleviation tool in many countries, the risk management aspects of microfinancing should not be overlooked. This paper highlights several incidences of default risks in microfinance and subsequently, provides a comprehensive exploratory study on the various ways to handle the default risks in microfinance. While there are social and religious objectives embedded in extending microfinancing, fact is that the financiers are business entities having the objectives of maximizing returns and minimizing losses. In this regard, this paper contributes towards a more effective recovery process, so that more people can benefit from the microfinancing facilities. Several suggestions are highlighted to maximize the benefits of microfinance to both the creditors and borrowers with the objective of realizing a win-win situation for both parties.Microfinance, default risks, recovery process, Bangladesh

How to Organise Return Handling

Already for a long time retailers take back products. In this paper we explore the factors contributing to the decision of combining vs. separating inbound and outbound flows during the return handling process. We do so through a comparative analysis of the operations in nine retailer warehouses, which can be divided in three groups: food retailers, department stores and mail order companies. We identify both aggravating factors and facilitating actions for return handling. Furthermore, we bring about recommendations for practice. At the end we put forward propositions that are useful in feeding studies on return handling efficiency. In particular, we conjecture over the impact that return volume and product diversity have on the decision for combining vs. separating the reverse and forward flows.product returns;case studies;Retailing;inbound and outbound flows;return handling

Supporting the reconciliation of models of object behaviour

This paper presents Reconciliation+, a method which identifies overlaps between models of software systems behaviour expressed as UML object interaction diagrams (i.e., sequence and/or collaboration diagrams), checks whether the overlapping elements of these models satisfy specific consistency rules and, in cases where they violate these rules, guides software designers in handling the detected inconsistencies. The method detects overlaps between object interaction diagrams by using a probabilistic message matching algorithm that has been developed for this purpose. The guidance to software designers on when to check for inconsistencies and how to deal with them is delivered by enacting a built-in process model that specifies the consistency rules that can be checked against overlapping models and different ways of handling violations of these rules. Reconciliation+ is supported by a toolkit. It has also been evaluated in a case study. This case study has produced positive results which are discussed in the paper

Test-aware combinatorial interaction testing

Combinatorial interaction testing (CIT) approaches system- atically sample a given configuration space and select a set of configurations, in which each valid t-way option setting combination appears at least once. A battery of test cases are then executed in the selected configurations. Exist- ing CIT approaches, however, do not provide a system- atic way of handling test-specific inter-option constraints. Improper handling of such constraints, on the other hand, causes masking effects, which in turn causes testers to de- velop false confidence in their test processes, believing them have tested certain option setting combinations, when they in fact have not. In this work, to avoid the harmful conse- quences of masking effects caused by improper handling of test-specific constraints, we compute t-way test-aware cov- ering arrays. A t-way test-aware covering array is not just a set of configurations as is the case in traditional covering arrays, but a set of configurations, each of which is asso- ciated with a set of test cases. We furthermore present a set of empirical studies conducted by using two widely-used highly-configurable software systems as our subject applica- tions, demonstrating that test-specific constraints are likely to occur in practice and the proposed approach is a promis- ing and effective way of handling them