Cloud WorkBench - Infrastructure-as-Code Based Cloud Benchmarking

To optimally deploy their applications, users of Infrastructure-as-a-Service clouds are required to evaluate the costs and performance of different combinations of cloud configurations to find out which combination provides the best service level for their specific application. Unfortunately, benchmarking cloud services is cumbersome and error-prone. In this paper, we propose an architecture and concrete implementation of a cloud benchmarking Web service, which fosters the definition of reusable and representative benchmarks. In distinction to existing work, our system is based on the notion of Infrastructure-as-Code, which is a state of the art concept to define IT infrastructure in a reproducible, well-defined, and testable way. We demonstrate our system based on an illustrative case study, in which we measure and compare the disk IO speeds of different instance and storage types in Amazon EC2

Marketing plan for a mobile application : Marketing research and a plan for a mobile application of a startup company

The purpose of this thesis is to provide an insight of the application market and to create a marketing plan for a new mobile application. The client is a startup company and they needed a marketing research and a marketing plan for their mobile application. The company does not have a person working with marketing and therefore they asked for this project. The application itself provides information about local bars and nightclubs. It will be launched first in southern Europe and after worldwide. The aim is to study the current application market trends and see how the consumers are using the mobile applications, and how traditional and digital marketing methods can be applied to applications marketing. These methods are also combined to create the most optimal way to create a marketing communications plan for the application. The marketing communication plan is divided to prelaunch, launch and after launch activities. These different parts will support the relationship with the launching of the app and its marketing communications. The main goal with the marketing communication plan is to build awareness and create customer engagement through social media and other channels. The method used in this thesis is qualitative. Mostly the method of this thesis is desktop study. Benchmarking is also used by introducing a successful application and their methods of marketing. The benchmarking was implemented through a case study where a successful app was examined. The marketing strategy of the case app was used to get ideas in the marketing plan. Since the company is a startup company, and the app is still in developing phase, it was challenging to create a specific marketing plan for the company. Mainly the plan was focusing on using marketing tools and social media channels to gain awareness and customer engagement, and to create a guideline how to start

A Critical Review of Circularity - ‘design for disassembly’ assessment methods applied in the development of modular construction panels - an Irish case study

The construction and operation of buildings has a significant negative impact on the environment and is a major contributor to global warming. The EU has responded with a range of policy measures including targets to decarbonise the existing building stock and to promote circular economy principles in the built environment. The Drive 0 project aimed to demonstrate potential for such accelerated decarbonisation of the building stock using circular modularised solutions, which necessitated the development and application of circularity - design for disassembly assessment methods, undertaken at key stages during the life of the project, to aid design development and benchmarking of proposed solutions, which is an identified knowledge gap in research. This paper presents a critical review of the Drive 0 circularity - design for disassembly assessment methods applied in the development of the Irish modularised wall panel, providing case specific insights into the challenges and complexity of implementing and assessing circularity and design for disassembly in buildings, drawing from relevant literature in the field, and contributing to key retrofit, modularity and circularity research needs notably case specific application in construction

EU and OECD benchmarking and peer review compared

Benchmarking and peer review are essential elements of the so-called EU open method of coordination (OMC) which has been contested in the literature for lack of effectiveness. In this paper we compare benchmarking and peer review procedures as used by the EU with those used by the OECD. Different types of benchmarking and peer review are distinguished and pitfalls for (international) benchmarking are discussed. We find that the OECD has a clear single objective for its benchmarking and peer review activities (i.e. horizontal policy transfers) whereas the EU suffers from a mix of objectives (a. horizontal policy learning; b. EU wide vertical policy coordination and c. multilateral monitoring and surveillance under the shadow of hierarchy). Whereas the OECD is able to skirt around most of the benchmarking pitfalls, this is not the case for the EU. It is argued that, rather than continue working with the panacea OMC benchmarking and peer review currently represents, EU benchmarking should take a number of more distinct shapes in order to improve effectiveness. Moreover, in some areas benchmarking and peer review are not sufficient coordination tools, and are at best additional to those means of coordination that include enforceable sanctions

Reference catalogue for ICT services in healthcare : model for ICT service management, controlling and benchmarking : version 1.0

Translation of the German original

Quality assurance of rectal cancer diagnosis and treatment - phase 3 : statistical methods to benchmark centres on a set of quality indicators

In 2004, the Belgian Section for Colorectal Surgery, a section of the Royal Belgian Society for Surgery, decided to start PROCARE (PROject on CAncer of the REctum), a multidisciplinary, profession-driven and decentralized project with as main objectives the reduction of diagnostic and therapeutic variability and improvement of outcome in patients with rectal cancer. All medical specialties involved in the care of rectal cancer established a multidisciplinary steering group in 2005. They agreed to approach the stated goal by means of treatment standardization through guidelines, implementation of these guidelines and quality assurance through registration and feedback. In 2007, the PROCARE guidelines were updated (Procare Phase I, KCE report 69). In 2008, a set of 40 process and outcome quality of care indicators (QCI) was developed and organized into 8 domains of care: general, diagnosis/staging, neoadjuvant treatment, surgery, adjuvant treatment, palliative treatment, follow-up and histopathologic examination. These QCIs were tested on the prospective PROCARE database and on an administrative (claims) database (Procare Phase II, KCE report 81). Afterwards, 4 QCIs were added by the PROCARE group. Centres have been receiving feedback from the PROCARE registry on these QCIs with a description of the distribution of the unadjusted centre-averaged observed measures and the centre’s position therein. To optimize this feedback, centres should ideally be informed of their risk-adjusted outcomes and be given some benchmarks. The PROCARE Phase III study is devoted to developing a methodology to achieve this feedback