A comprehensive analysis of diverse risk management strategies in healthcare supply chain

The purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive framework for healthcare supply chain risk management, in order to explore, evaluate and prioritize risk factors, as well as to validate the proposed model empirically. The proposed method combines a review of published articles, questionnaire surveys, and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to identify risk factors, as well as Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) to investigate the inter-relationships among the risks. The identified 34 risk factors that affect the management of hospital supply chains can be divided into three main categories. To mitigate these identified risks, various strategies have been studied through empirical research. The outcomes provide a guideline for hospital managers to anticipate and prepare for potential risks

Integrated Frameworks for Effective Multi-criteria Decision Making in Reliability Centred Maintenance of Industrial Machines

No abstract availabl

Sustainable Construction Engineering and Management

This Book is a Printed Edition of the Special Issue which covers sustainability as an emerging requirement in the fields of construction management, project management and engineering. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research articles that address the challenges and opportunities for sustainable construction in all its facets, including technical topics and specific operational or procedural solutions, as well as strategic approaches aimed at the project, company or industry level. Central to developments are smart technologies and sophisticated decision-making mechanisms that augment sustainable outcomes. The Special Issue was received with great interest by the research community and attracted a high number of submissions. The selection process sought to balance the inclusion of a broad representative spread of topics against research quality, with editors and reviewers settling on thirty-three articles for publication. The Editors invite all participating researchers and those interested in sustainable construction engineering and management to read the summary of the Special Issue and of course to access the full-text articles provided in the Book for deeper analyses

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Sustainable Assessment in Supply Chain and Infrastructure Management

In the competitive business environment or public domain, the sustainability assessment in supply chain and infrastructure management are important for any organization. Organizations are currently striving to improve their sustainable strategies through preparedness, response, and recovery because of increasing competitiveness, community, and regulatory pressure. Thus, it is necessary to develop a meaningful and more focused understanding of sustainability in supply chain management and infrastructure management practices. In the context of a supply chain, sustainability implies that companies identify, assess, and manage impacts and risks in all the echelons of the supply chain, considering downstream and upstream activities. Similarly, the sustainable infrastructure management indicates the ability of infrastructure to meet the requirements of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to address their needs. The complexities regarding sustainable supply chain and infrastructure management have driven managers and professionals to seek different solutions. This Special Issue aims to provide readers with the most recent research results on the aforementioned subjects. In addition, it offers some solutions and also raises some questions for further research and development toward sustainable supply chain and infrastructure management

Corporate sustainability performance of the Readymade Garments industry in Bangladesh:impact of organisational pressures and sustainability management control system

The Readymade Garment (RMG) industry of Bangladesh has been severely criticized for its negative environmental impact, frequent industrial accidents, inhuman working conditions and low wages. In response to these escalating criticisms, RMG companies in Bangladesh are sincerely trying to improve their Corporate Sustainability Performance (CSP) to pacify the concerns raised by various stakeholder groups. This study first developed and then tested a conceptual framework in order to understand relationships among the Organisational Pressures (i.e. external and internal), the Sustainability Management Control System (SMCS) and CSP, based on a large-scale questionnaire survey in Bangladesh. In total 255 responses were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to identify the major internal and external pressure behind CSP. In this study, International Retailers (IRs) and cost competitiveness emerged as the main triggers to improve CSP in Bangladesh. This is the first study which has investigated the mediating role of SMCS between organisational pressure and CSP. The results confirm the positive mediating effects of SMCS between external pressure and CSP. Drawing upon contingency theory, this study highlights the importance of having a dedicated SCMC as a strategic tool to improve CSP. This study has also utilised the Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach to develop a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model to assess the performance of the RMG companies, based on their sustainability criteria. This study also demonstrates the application of a benchmarking model based on RMG companies‘ CSP

Security Analysis and Improvement Model for Web-based Applications

Today the web has become a major conduit for information. As the World Wide Web?s popularity continues to increase, information security on the web has become an increasing concern. Web information security is related to availability, confidentiality, and data integrity. According to the reports from http://www.securityfocus.com in May 2006, operating systems account for 9% vulnerability, web-based software systems account for 61% vulnerability, and other applications account for 30% vulnerability. In this dissertation, I present a security analysis model using the Markov Process Model. Risk analysis is conducted using fuzzy logic method and information entropy theory. In a web-based application system, security risk is most related to the current states in software systems and hardware systems, and independent of web application system states in the past. Therefore, the web-based applications can be approximately modeled by the Markov Process Model. The web-based applications can be conceptually expressed in the discrete states of (web_client_good; web_server_good, web_server_vulnerable, web_server_attacked, web_server_security_failed; database_server_good, database_server_vulnerable, database_server_attacked, database_server_security_failed) as state space in the Markov Chain. The vulnerable behavior and system response in the web-based applications are analyzed in this dissertation. The analyses focus on functional availability-related aspects: the probability of reaching a particular security failed state and the mean time to the security failure of a system. Vulnerability risk index is classified in three levels as an indicator of the level of security (low level, high level, and failed level). An illustrative application example is provided. As the second objective of this dissertation, I propose a security improvement model for the web-based applications using the GeoIP services in the formal methods. In the security improvement model, web access is authenticated in role-based access control using user logins, remote IP addresses, and physical locations as subject credentials to combine with the requested objects and privilege modes. Access control algorithms are developed for subjects, objects, and access privileges. A secure implementation architecture is presented. In summary, the dissertation has developed security analysis and improvement model for the web-based application. Future work will address Markov Process Model validation when security data collection becomes easy. Security improvement model will be evaluated in performance aspect