A Compendium of Existing Mechanisms for Meeting Health Needs in the Philippines

health sector, health management, health service delivery

The RADIAL Model: An Integrated Approach to In-House Communication Training

An organization’s ability to promote and maintain effective communication practices becomes ever more critical in the face of rapid change, uncertainty, and high technology (McLagan and Bedrick, 1983). In fact, several years ago a national organization of training and development professionals (the American Society for Training and Development) put increased readiness for change at the heart of its concerns. Employees at all levels need, more than ever before, to process information accurately, deliver messages clearly, write concisely, and work effectively with their colleagues. Communication educators play an increasingly important role, as employees at all levels anticipate dealing with an often chaotic and ever- changing work environment. Clearly, when training professionals examine effective ways of developing a flexible, highly adaptive workforce, communication skills training is high on the list of action steps. Samuel Certo (1985, p.555) explains, “Future-oriented managers must see the future not as an uncontrollable development but as a factor that can be influenced significantly by present ... behavior.

Groupware for knowledge management in SMEs: the case of a developing country

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Sustainable and integrated urban planning and governance in metropolitan and medium-sized cities

This paper examines the design and implementation process of Integrated Strategies for Sustainable Urban Development (ISUD), as well as their main effects and lessons learned in two European cities: Barcelona in Spain, a vibrant European metropolis, and Évora in Portugal, a medium-sized city with a world heritage historic centre. The former is facing socioeconomic challenges in some of its neighbourhoods, while the latter, a regional capital of an already depopulated region, Alentejo, is facing further depopulation and socioeconomic challenges. Following from a qualitative analysis of ISUD and other urban plans implemented in past decades, the article employs a framework with five analytical dimensions, based on the policy cycle (priority setting, participatory approaches, implementation strategy, collaboration networks, and measuring results and impact). These provide a framework to identify best practices. The findings demonstrate that ISUD in both cities provides impetus for sustainable strategic planning, but can be strengthened in particular via the active involvement of citizens and stakeholders in the elaboration and implementation of these ISUD. Conversely, the results demonstrate mounting challenges that many urban planners in medium-sized towns face in relation to inverting depopulation trends, raising further questions of to what extent European Cohesion policy, and ISUD in particular, can contribute to territorial cohesion objectives whilst also aiming to achieve other policy goals.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Server Consolidation Solution

Advances in server architecture has enabled corporations the ability to strategically redesign their data centers in order to realign the system infrastructure to business needs. The architectural design of physically and logically consolidating servers into fewer and smaller hardware platforms can reduce data center overhead costs, while adding quality of service. In order for the organization to take advantage of the architectural opportunity a server consolidation project was proposed that utilized blade technology coupled with the virtualization of servers. Physical consolidation reduced the data center facility requirements, while server virtualization reduced the number of required hardware platforms. With the constant threat of outsourcing, coupled with the explosive growth of the organization, the IT managers were challenged to provide increased system services and functionality to a larger user community, while maintaining the same head count. A means of reducing overhead costs associated with the in-house data center was to reduce the required facility and hardware resources. The reduction in the data center footprint required less real estate, electricity, fire suppression infrastructure, and HVAC utilities. In addition, since the numerous stand alone servers were consolidated onto a standard platform system administration became more agile to business opportunities.

The IEEE-SA patent policy update under the lens of EU competition law

In 2015, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standardization Association made some controversial changes to its patent policy. The changes include a recommended method of calculation of FRAND royalty rates, and a request to members holding a standard- essential patent to forego their right to seek an injunction except under limited circumstances. The updated policy was adopted by the IEEE Board of Directors after obtaining a favourable Business Review Letter by the US Department of Justice, which found any potential competitive harm from the policy to be outweighed by potential pro-competitive benefits. In this paper, we examine whether the same favourable conclusion would be reached under EU competition analysis. After discussing the role of patent policies of standard-setting organizations and the rules and principles applicable to the IEEE’s activities, the paper concludes that standardization agreements based on the updated policy may constitute a violation of article 101 TFEU