The Medicare Physician Group Practice Demonstration: Lessons Learned on Improving Quality and Efficiency in Health Care

Discusses the experiences of ten large practices earning performance payments for improving the quality and cost-efficiency of health care delivered to Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries

PROJECT OPTIMA: optimisation of policies for transport integration in metropolitan areas

The overall objectives of Project OPTIMA were: (i) to identify optimal urban transport and land use strategies for a range of urban areas within the EU; (ii) to compare the strategies which are specified as optimal in different cities, and to assess the reasons for these differences; (iii) to assess the acceptability and feasibility of implementation of these strategies both in nine case study cities (Edinburgh, Merseyside, Vienna, Eisenstadt, Tromsø, Oslo, Helsinki, Torino and Salerno) and more widely in the EU; and (iv) to use the results to provide more general guidance on urban transport policy within the EU

International trade and logistics : an empirical panel investigation of the dynamic linkages between the logistics and trade and their contribution to economic growth

An earlier version of this study has been presented in ICABE 2019 www.icabe.grPurpose: The ultimate objective of this paper is to investigate the causal relationships between countries’ logistics performance, international trade and economic growth. Design/Methodology/Approach: We analyze the dynamic linkages among the Logistics Performance Index (LPI), trade openness as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as well as the GDP growth based on a sample of 39 countries worldwide over the period 2007-2018. More particularly, we assess the significance and the direction of the detected causal effects among the three variables both in the long and the short run, using panel econometrics methodologies, namely, panel unit root tests, pooled mean group (PMG) models, and the Toda-Yamamoto approach to Granger-causality analysis. Findings: The findings support that both international trade and logistics performance constitute driving forces of economic growth. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the effects of the logistics‘ sector on international trade are not direct but only through economic growth. Practical Implications: The direction of causality is deemed quite important due to its strategic policy implications. A causal relationship running from the logistics and transport sector to trade investments in logistics and transport would cater for economic growth through increased trade. Policy makers should then adopt various policies aiming to promote or facilitate exports. Originality/Value: Causal effects and more specifically the direction of causality between the transport infrastructure and economic growth have not been sufficiently studied in existing literature. Furthermore, only few studies provide some general evidence of a positive correlation between better logistics and increased trade. In our paper, we aim to further investigate the dynamic relationships between international trade and the logistics and transport sector.peer-reviewe

Report from GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394: Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World

This report documents the program and the outcomes of GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394 "Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World". The seminar addressed the problem of performance-aware DevOps. Both, DevOps and performance engineering have been growing trends over the past one to two years, in no small part due to the rise in importance of identifying performance anomalies in the operations (Ops) of cloud and big data systems and feeding these back to the development (Dev). However, so far, the research community has treated software engineering, performance engineering, and cloud computing mostly as individual research areas. We aimed to identify cross-community collaboration, and to set the path for long-lasting collaborations towards performance-aware DevOps. The main goal of the seminar was to bring together young researchers (PhD students in a later stage of their PhD, as well as PostDocs or Junior Professors) in the areas of (i) software engineering, (ii) performance engineering, and (iii) cloud computing and big data to present their current research projects, to exchange experience and expertise, to discuss research challenges, and to develop ideas for future collaborations

Continuous Improvement in Education

In recent years, 'continuous improvement' has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education.This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated. This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion