The significance of indirect costs—application to clinical laboratory test economics using computer facilities

The significance of indirect costs in the cost price calculation of clinical chemistry laboratory tests by way of the production centres method has been investigated. A cost structure model based on the ‘production centres’ method, the Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen (AZG) 1-2-3 model, is used for the calculation of cost and cost prices as an add-in tool to the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3. The system specifications of the AZG 1-2-3 cost structure model have been extended with facilities to impute all relevant indirect costs to cost centres by aid of allocation rules, which can be chosen freely. The inference is made that as indirect costs play a more important part in decision-making processes concerning planning and control, the specification of the relation to the cost centres should be determined in a more detailed way. The AZG 1-2-3 cost structure model has therefore been extended in order to increase the significance as a management tool for laboratory management

Le malaise économique wallon

Ce numéro de Regards économiques se penche sur la situation économique et sociale en Wallonie. Il en dresse un large portrait, en souligne les points positifs et négatifs, et ébauche quelques pistes de réflexion sur les mesures propices à donner à l’économie wallonne un nouvel élan.

Institutions and Functions

What is an institution? And what distinguishes one type of institution from another? We answer these questions using a functionalist approach: types of institutions are identified by their function, or the coordination problems they solve; token institutions are specific solutions to these problems, or equilibria of strategic games. The functionalist approach provides some insights into the limits of reform, or the extent to which institutions \u2013 like marriage, property, or democracy \u2013 can be modified without turning them into entities of a different kind

Separating Agent-Functioning and Inter-Agent Coordination by Activated Modules: The DECOMAS Architecture

The embedding of self-organizing inter-agent processes in distributed software applications enables the decentralized coordination system elements, solely based on concerted, localized interactions. The separation and encapsulation of the activities that are conceptually related to the coordination, is a crucial concern for systematic development practices in order to prepare the reuse and systematic integration of coordination processes in software systems. Here, we discuss a programming model that is based on the externalization of processes prescriptions and their embedding in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). One fundamental design concern for a corresponding execution middleware is the minimal-invasive augmentation of the activities that affect coordination. This design challenge is approached by the activation of agent modules. Modules are converted to software elements that reason about and modify their host agent. We discuss and formalize this extension within the context of a generic coordination architecture and exemplify the proposed programming model with the decentralized management of (web) service infrastructures

What Is an Act of Engagement? Between the Social, Collegial and Institutional Protocols

Engagement is not synonymous with commitment, even though both words are used in translations between English, French, and German. However, engagement is also not some supplementary phenomenon or a technical term that the phrase social acts already includes in itself or that the concepts of ‘commitment’ or ‘joint commitment’ somehow necessarily imply. In this article I would like to describe a special kind of social act and determine the function they have in relation between various agents. Most importantly, I would like to define their significance in the transformation of a group into an institution or higher order entity. My premise is that there are acts whose aim is to engage all others, since they refer to all of us together, and in so doing reduce negative (social) “acts” as well as various asocial behaviors within a group or institution. In this sense, engaged acts could alternatively also belong to a kind of institutional act, since they introduce certain adjustments to the institution, changing or modifying its rules, increasing its consistency and efficiency.First book series in Philosophy of the Social Sciences that specifically focuses on Philosophy of Sociality and Social Ontology. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality Volume 1