Computerised link analysis

Link Analysis (LA) is a useful method to study relationships and arrangements of elements within a system. It has been used more and more in the healthcare domain to create appropriate work conditions for clinical staff and provide patients with effective, efficient and safe services. However LA has limitations, such as the timeconsuming manual data recording and results generating processes. Thus, the Computerised Link Analysis (CLA) system was developed and is being tested to provide flexibility by computerising template generation, and data collection and analysis processes. This paper will describe the development and iterative testing (technical, usability and field) of the CLA system

A Quasi-Experimental Approach for Assessing Air Traffic Controller Workload

The objective of this thesis was to evaluate and determine the operational impacts to the Oceanic Air Traffic Controller (controller) from deficiencies of an Oceanic Data Link system. These deficiencies in the Oceanic Data Link system are in regards to the Computer Human Interface (CHI) and its effect on the cognitive effort and physical task requirements imposed on the controller. The various workload methodologies and techniques were reviewed for specific workload techniques applicable to the operational environment when resources, such as time and funding, are lacking for a laboratory design. Data was collected from a live oceanic control facility where the Oceanic Data Link system is currently being utilized at a single sector on the control room floor. Qualitative measures were used to assess controller workload associated with performing Air Traffic Control (ATC) tasks. The data collection activities utilized the analysis of data from the NASA-Task Load Index (TLX), observation, and questionnaires. Subjective workload analysis was used and collected from eleven oceanic controllers. Analysis of the NASA-TLX revealed that the use of the Oceanic Data Link system received the highest rating in mental demand and temporal demand followed closely by frustration and effort. The Oceanic Data Link system imposes higher workload in cognitive demand rather than physical demand, but does not affect their performance

Automated link analysis using radio frequency identification (RFID)

Being able to accurately record the interactions which take place within any environment is beneficial for understanding human behaviour in a wide range of industries. Link Analysis is a standard technique which is often used, but traditional pen and paper methods are cumbersome and time consuming. This paper details a way to automate recording the interactions between a human and their current environment by using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and a subject-mounted receiver. Using the results from the system, it is possible to instantly create conventional Link Analysis diagrams and tables, reducing the time and resources required for data collection and analysis. The system has been developed in partnership with the Healthcare Ergonomics and Patient Safety Unit (HEPSU) at Loughborough University, with initial focus being on monitoring paramedics, patients and environment interactions within an ambulance; however, the technologies and the analyser system are not limited to use within this particular field

Care of burns in Scotland: 3-year data from the managed clinical network national registry

Introduction The Managed Clinical Network for Care of Burns in Scotland (COBIS) was launched in April 2007. Primary aims included establishing and maintaining a registry of complex burn injury in Scotland and setting mechanisms to regularly audit outcome of burn treatment against nationally agreed standards of care. On behalf of COBIS, we present 3-year incidence and mortality data of Scottish patients admitted with a complex burn injury in this abstract. Methods From January 2010 onwards, data were prospectively collected for all patients in Scotland with complex burn injury admitted to Scottish burns units. Data collection was initially on a paper pro forma, but subsequently evolved into a web-based audit data capture system to securely link hospital sites involved in the delivery of care of complex burns. Data collected included extent and mechanism of burn, presence of airway burn or smoke inhalational injury, comorbidities, complications, length of stay, interventions and mortality. Quality, completeness and consistency of data collection are audited with feedback to the individual units. Results In a population of approximately 5.3 million, the annual incidence of complex burn injury is 499 to 537 (9 to 10 per 100,000). The incidence of a major burn is 5% of burn admissions. The hospital mortality from a burn is 1 to 2.2%. See Table 1. Table 1. Numbers of complex burns in Scotland 2010 to 2012 Conclusion From these data, Scotland now has comprehensive national figures for complex burn injury. This allows for benchmarking against other international indices, few of which provide comprehensive data. COBIS data can now also be correlated with other mortality data sources. As data quality improves, detailed analysis of mortality data will allow COBIS to identify contributing issues affecting burns patients. Some issues identified already are that patients with burns often die soon after their discharge from hospital of other related and unrelated causes. Subsequent analysis of this will allow COBIS to identify and address issues that may be contributing to these statistics

Event tracking for real-time unaware sensitivity analysis (EventTracker)

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.This paper introduces a platform for online Sensitivity Analysis (SA) that is applicable in large scale real-time data acquisition (DAQ) systems. Here we use the term real-time in the context of a system that has to respond to externally generated input stimuli within a finite and specified period. Complex industrial systems such as manufacturing, healthcare, transport, and finance require high quality information on which to base timely responses to events occurring in their volatile environments. The motivation for the proposed EventTracker platform is the assumption that modern industrial systems are able to capture data in real-time and have the necessary technological flexibility to adjust to changing system requirements. The flexibility to adapt can only be assured if data is succinctly interpreted and translated into corrective actions in a timely manner. An important factor that facilitates data interpretation and information modelling is an appreciation of the affect system inputs have on each output at the time of occurrence. Many existing sensitivity analysis methods appear to hamper efficient and timely analysis due to a reliance on historical data, or sluggishness in providing a timely solution that would be of use in real-time applications. This inefficiency is further compounded by computational limitations and the complexity of some existing models. In dealing with real-time event driven systems, the underpinning logic of the proposed method is based on the assumption that in the vast majority of cases changes in input variables will trigger events. Every single or combination of events could subsequently result in a change to the system state. The proposed event tracking sensitivity analysis method describes variables and the system state as a collection of events. The higher the numeric occurrence of an input variable at the trigger level during an event monitoring interval, the greater is its impact on the final analysis of the system state. Experiments were designed to compare the proposed event tracking sensitivity analysis method with a comparable method (that of Entropy). An improvement of 10% in computational efficiency without loss in accuracy was observed. The comparison also showed that the time taken to perform the sensitivity analysis was 0.5% of that required when using the comparable Entropy based method.EPSR

Mixed Polling with Rerouting and Applications

Queueing systems with a single server in which customers wait to be served at a finite number of distinct locations (buffers/queues) are called discrete polling systems. Polling systems in which arrivals of users occur anywhere in a continuum are called continuous polling systems. Often one encounters a combination of the two systems: the users can either arrive in a continuum or wait in a finite set (i.e. wait at a finite number of queues). We call these systems mixed polling systems. Also, in some applications, customers are rerouted to a new location (for another service) after their service is completed. In this work, we study mixed polling systems with rerouting. We obtain their steady state performance by discretization using the known pseudo conservation laws of discrete polling systems. Their stationary expected workload is obtained as a limit of the stationary expected workload of a discrete system. The main tools for our analysis are: a) the fixed point analysis of infinite dimensional operators and; b) the convergence of Riemann sums to an integral. We analyze two applications using our results on mixed polling systems and discuss the optimal system design. We consider a local area network, in which a moving ferry facilitates communication (data transfer) using a wireless link. We also consider a distributed waste collection system and derive the optimal collection point. In both examples, the service requests can arrive anywhere in a subset of the two dimensional plane. Namely, some users arrive in a continuous set while others wait for their service in a finite set. The only polling systems that can model these applications are mixed systems with rerouting as introduced in this manuscript.Comment: to appear in Performance Evaluatio

FISCAL MANAGEMENT IN DANGILA MUNICIPALITY, ETHIOPIA. PERFORMANCE AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Fiscal decentralization is one component of decentralization that gives authority to local governments to collect revenue through taxes and responsibility over spending decisions. Even though fiscal decentralization has given revenue raising and spending decision powers to lower levels of government, the implementation process has often been a daunting task for many local authorities in the developing world. In the case of Ethiopia, decentralization has been implemented since 1991. However, revenue raising and expenditure management are not efficiently and effectively exercised, especially in lower level government units of Ethiopia. Insufficient revenue collection and reprehensible expenditure management leads to financial incapability such that public infrastructure and services could not be financed amply. Dangila municipality faces the problem of financial capacity to deliver infrastructure and services to its citizens. While a number of studies have documented the financial incapacities of Ethiopian municipalities, they have been very shy to articulate the discrepancies and deficiencies that link financing to service delivery. It is interesting to know what the driving factors are in this case. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of revenue collection and expenditure management of Dangila Municipality. To obtain edifying data the paper used a positivist survey study. Municipality financial documentation and questionnaires were the main sources of secondary and primary data respectively. Parametric descriptive statistical methods were applied in the analysis of data to arrive at measures of efficiency and effectiveness in revenue collection and expenditure management of the municipality. The study revealed that the municipality is not efficient and effective in its revenue collection and expenditure management. The main explanation for such inefficiency comprise; derisory assessment of taxable sources, poor organizational structure, inadequate accounting system, absence of clear operational guidelines, poor planning and data base management, lack of awareness by taxpayers and lack of skilled manpower. To resolve such challenges, we recommend the following actionable measures; widening the revenue base of local sources of revenue, improving planning and implementing capacity, establishing adequate data base systems, continuous awareness creation for taxpayers, establishing appropriate guidelines and methods of revenue collection, revision of the tariff structure regularly, installing accounting system that produces timely and reliable information, encouraging community participation in planning and resource allocation and municipal restructuring that take into account needs and welfare of employees. Classification-JEL: R53, R42Fiscal decentralization, revenue collection, expenditure management, efficiency, effectiveness.

Power and politics in the adoption of information systems by organisations: the case of a research centre in Latin America

This thesis applies contributions from the social sciences to the study of power to examine how and why organisations adopt information systems. Its main concern is the set of events, actions and factors that induce an information system to become routinised in the organisational life; that is how information systems become institutionalised. I argue that the actions and events that lead to the adoption and subsequent institutionalisation of an information system are politically motivated and facilitated by power relations because information systems are chiefly instruments used by organisational actors to achieve their goals. To develop the argument I have adapted and interpreted a model rooted in social and organisational sciences. This model is used as a theoretical framework for the collection and analysis of data of two case studies. the first case centres on the collapse of the London Ambulance Service in 1992. The second and major case study focuses on a research centre in Latin America. This case study accounts for the adoption and institutionalisation of three information systems in that organisation. The application of the theoretical framework constitute a contribution in researching power and politics of information systems because it illustrates how to link data to the theory. This thesis also contributes to the theory of power and information systems because the findings of the two case studies allowed us to make inferences that complement the original theoretical model. Furthermore, those findings are propositions that information systems practitioners might convert into useful principles in assessing the political base and power relationships of the organisation for which they work. The thesis concludes by asserting that the adoption and institutionalisation of an information system necessarily imply the exercise of power of those organisation actors that own or propose the system