Sources of stress in the national health services: A comparison of seven occupational groups

This paper reports a comparative study of sources of occupational stress affecting the seven major occupational groups within the National Health Service. The groups are compared on seven dependent variables. These are the six sub-categories of stressors identified by Cooper and Marshall (1978) and measured by the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) (Cooper et al. 1988), and a total stress score that is derived by summing scores for each of the six sub-categories. Occupational groups differed significantly (p.05) in only two of the six sub-categories. In these cases occupational groups not normally associated with front-line care reported higher levels of stress than either doctors or nurses. The results show that high levels of occupational stress are experienced by all occupational groups within the NHS and the subsequent discussion argues for a more progressive research policy that gives adequate attention to 'lower status' groups, such as ancillary, works and maintenance, and administrative and clerical.     

Medical practices: hot properties of the '90s

The buying and selling of medical practices is big business around the country. Fueled by fears of where health reform is headed, frustrated by reduced reimbursements and mountainous paperwork, physicians are bailing out of solo practices, and small group practices are approaching large groups looking for safety in numbers. The large groups are aligning themselves with hospitals, and hospitals are luring large groups by offering to build them clinics. Clearly, this is a trend that will be heightened by anticipated structural reform of the health care system, but it is not without its dangers for all those who participate in the process.     

服务质量、需求强度与共享出行平台定价——基于平台封闭与开放策略的视角

共享出行平台逐步由增加用户流量的扩张期进入提升出行多元化体验的稳定期,通过采取开放策略,平台在原有共享车基础上引入出租车来提供差异化服务。本文基于双边市场理论,构建共享出行平台定价策略模型,并利用计算实验方法,在Repast中模拟共享出行平台多智能体运行场景。研究发现：①无论平台选择封闭策略还是开放策略,平台对共享车收取的交易费应随着乘客出行需求强度增大而升高,且应随着共享车服务质量的增大而降低;平台对乘客收取的交易费应随着共享车服务质量增大而升高,且应随着乘客的出行强度的增大而降低。②平台开放程度越高,平台对共享车收取的交易费越低,对乘客收取的交易费越高。③为了利润最大化,平台应选择开放策略,并需注重提高共享车的服务质量。本文为共享出行平台优化运营策略提供了理论指导。     

区域性企业战略集团的划分与效率分析

战略集团理论是近年来在国际管理科学界兴起的一个研究热点。在理论和实践上,它对产业战略重组、企业竞争战略的选取等方面都具有较好的指导作用。通常意义下,人们都是从产业的整体角度去讨论战略集团的存在与划分问题。本文缩小了产业范围,对产业内的局部企业进行了分析,通过一个煤炭企业战略集团划分的实例,证明了现实的战略集团在区域性产业内的存在性。同时,本文还运用数据包络分析(DEA)技术进一步证明了在战略集团之间存在着明显的差异性。最后指出,战略集团的划分并结合企业效率的评价对整个产业或局部性产业内的企业重组具有较高的参考价值。     

Exploring social networks on the team level—A review of the empirical literature

Despite the extensive set of findings on the determinants of team effectiveness, academic understanding of one potentially critical set of determinants, social networks, is limited. This paper is a review and a discussion of the literature on the impact of social networks in small groups such as teams. More specifically, the interest is in the effects of the structural characteristics of the networks on team effectiveness. The review covers various types of small groups: subjects of laboratory studies, student teams, innovation and R&D teams, and other organisational groups. The research findings for each type are reviewed, and the article concludes with a comparison of the variables studied. The progress that has been made is highlighted, suggestions for further research are made, and the key contributions to this area of study are summarised.     

Indigenous Resource Management Plans: Transporting Non-Indigenous People into the Indigenous World

The paper explores the degree to which Indigenous groups perceive that resource management plans they develop are able to help deliver outcomes they seek through formal planning systems. It does this by a case study of practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. Some Indigenous groups are concerned they are being encouraged to devote considerable effort to production of major planning documents for use in interaction with environmental agencies, yet in practice, such plans can appear to have a limited role in bringing about desired change or affecting wider planning processes. The research contributes a New Zealand dimension to this international debate.     

Development and analysis of mathematical and simulation models of decision-making tools for remanufacturing

This article presents decision-making tools for remanufacturing. The first decision-making tool was used to address inventory lot-sizing problems in a hybrid remanufacturing–manufacturing system with varying remanufacturing fraction. In this article, the new inventory lot-sizing model with variable remanufacturing lot sizes has been shown to exhibit better performance than the benchmark model with fixed remanufacturing lot sizes. The new inventory lot-sizing model is anticipated to become a valuable decision-making tool in companies that are planning to adopt remanufacturing. The second decision-making tool was applied to address a production and inventory planning problem in a remanufacturing system considering different remanufacturing policies for a given remanufacturing strategy. For a remanufacture-to-stock system with two quality remanufacturables groups four alternative policies were examined, a policy which specifies simultaneous processing utilising dedicated resources was shown to be the best policy to achieve a shorter remanufacturing cycle time. For a remanufacture-to-order system with two quality remanufacturables groups, the three relevant policies of the four alternative policies were examined, a policy which specifies sequential processing and switching between various quality remanufacturables groups was shown to be the best policy to achieve a shorter remanufacturing cycle time. The production and inventory planning simulation models in a remanufacturing system are expected to become significant decision-making tools in remanufacturing operations.     

Testing Enterprising Tendency In Occupational Groups

The administration of a test of enterprising tendency showed that business owner-managers were significantly more enterprising than other occupational groups, namely teachers, nurses, civil servants, clerical trainees and lecturers and trainers. This test, which aims to measure key characteristics of enterprising people, is described within this paper. Key enterprise characteristics may include a high need for achievement, a high need for autonomy, calculated risk-taking, an internal locus of control and a creative tendency. The result of this pilot study may suggest that the occupation of setting up and managing a business requires an enterprising tendency, unlike other occupations. However, it could reflect the fact that business owner-managers are the most studied sample of enterprising people and that the test is drawn from this literature. However, further studies are required to clarify distinctions within occupational groups and to determine if business owner-managers are more enterprising than other occupational groups. It would be especially interesting to compare the enterprising tendency of business owner-managers with managers and enterprising people from other occupational groups.     

Examining the Effects of a Low-Cost Prompt to Reduce Retail Theft

The present study evaluated the extent to which a low-cost, antitheft intervention impacted theft and sales in a multiple baseline design across two grocery stores. Previous research has measured the impact on theft of items that have a sign indicating their high theft rate and stickers next to or on the items. In contrast, this study tracked four intervention groups: a group directly marked with a sign and ribbons, two indirectly targeted groups (sign-only and a group down the aisle from the sign-only), and a group with no intervention. Results indicated the largest decrease in theft for one of the indirectly targeted groups, from 45 total items stolen to 13, compared to a smaller decrease in theft (i.e., 64 to 40) for the directly targeted sign and ribbons products. Implications of these findings for applying behavior-based antitheft interventions in retail businesses are discussed and future research is proposed.     

The Maximum Throughput on a Golf Course

We develop stochastic models to help manage the pace of play on a conventional 18‐hole golf course. These models are for group play on each of the standard hole types: par‐3, par‐4, and par‐5. These models include the realistic feature that k−2 groups can be playing at the same time on a par‐k hole, but with precedence constraints. We also consider par‐3 holes with a “wave‐up” rule, which allows two groups to be playing simultaneously. We mathematically determine the maximum possible throughput on each hole under natural conditions. To do so, we analyze the associated fully loaded holes, in which new groups are always available to start when the opportunity arises. We characterize the stationary interval between the times successive groups clear the green on a fully loaded hole, showing how it depends on the stage playing times. The structure of that stationary interval evidently can be exploited to help manage the pace of play. The mean of that stationary interval is the reciprocal of the capacity. The bottleneck holes are the holes with the least capacity. The bottleneck capacity is then the capacity of the golf course as a whole.     

THE IMPACT OF POLLUTION CONTROL ON CONSUMER INCOME A METHODOLOGICAL STUDY

This paper develops a methodology for assessing the impact of a comprehensive pollution control program on income distribution. A regional input-output table is employed to determine the overall effect of pollution control costs on prices. These price changes, are then translated into changes in consumption expenditures by income groups, which serve as a measure of the impact on consumers. The validity of this methodology is tested on the metropolitan Philadelphia region. It was found that the EPA air quality standards would raise the spending of middle income groups by about 3 percent as compared to about 2 percent increase for the highest and the lowest income groups. The paper concludes with an examination of the advantages and limitations of the proposed methodology.     

Job route selection model for workload balancing between workstations in flexible flow line

A flexible flow line (FFL) consists of several groups of identical machines. All work-orders flow along the same path through successive machine groups. Thus, the balancing of workloads between machine groups in order to maximize total productivity is emphasized. On the other hand, many different types of work-orders, in varying batch or lot sizes, are produced simultaneously. The mix of work-orders, their lot sizes, and the sequence in which they are produced affect the workload. However, the work-orders and their lot sizes are pre-fixed and cannot be changed. Because of these reasons, an optimal route selection model has been developed using heuristic search and a min-max algorithm for balancing the workload between machine groups in the FFL.     

Latent Separability: Grouping Goods without Weak Separability

This paper develops a new concept of separability with overlapping groups—latent separability. This is shown to provide a useful empirical and theoretical framework for investigating the grouping of goods and prices. It is a generalization of weak separability in which goods are allowed to enter more than one group and where the composition of groups is identified by the choice of group specific exclusive goods. Latent separability is shown to be equivalent to weak separability in latent rather than purchased goods and provides a relationship between separability and household production theory. For the popular class of linear, almost ideal and translog demand models and their generalizations, we provide a method for choosing the number of homothetic separable groups. A detailed method for exploring the composition of the separable groups is also presented. These methods are applied to a long time series of British individual household data on the consumption of twenty two nondurable and service goods.     

Influence of Distribution of Animals between Dose Groups on Estimated Benchmark Dose and Animal Distress for Quantal Responses

Increasingly, dose‐response data are being evaluated with the benchmark dose (BMD) approach rather than by the less precise no‐observed‐adverse‐effect‐level (NOAEL) approach. However, the basis for designing animal experiments, using equally sized dose groups, is still primed for the NOAEL approach. The major objective here was to assess the impact of using dose groups of unequal size on both the quality of the BMD and overall animal distress. We examined study designs with a total number of 200 animals distributed in four dose groups employing quantal data generated by Monte Carlo simulations. Placing more animals at doses close to the targeted BMD provided an estimate of BMD that was slightly better than the standard design with equally sized dose groups. In situations involving a clear dose‐response, this translates into fewer animals receiving high doses and thus less overall animal distress. Accordingly, in connection with risk and safety assessment, animal distress can potentially be reduced by distributing the animals appropriately between dose groups without decreasing the quality of the information obtained.     

Unemployment and Search for Work: Exploratory Analyses of Labour Market Attachment and its Dynamics

This paper deals with measuring unemployment and labour market attachment in Italy, on the basis of Labour Force Survey data. Based on the answers to a set of questions on search for work, a cluster analysis is performed, which yields four groups, clearly characterized as regards their labour market conditions and attachment. Analyses are then carried out on the gross flows between these groups, estimated over a quarterly interval. Results of the dynamic analysis confirm the relevance of the classification established through exploratory techniques. The various groups exhibit a different dynamic behaviour, thus documenting that the exploratory classification has predictive power.     

Influence of Distribution of Animals between Dose Groups on Estimated Benchmark Dose and Animal Welfare for Continuous Effects

The benchmark dose (BMD) approach is increasingly used as a preferred approach for dose–effect analysis, but standard experimental designs are generally not optimized for BMD analysis. The aim of this study was to evaluate how the use of unequally sized dose groups affects the quality of BMD estimates in toxicity testing, with special consideration of the total burden of animal distress. We generated continuous dose–effect data by Monte Carlo simulation using two dose–effect curves based on endpoints with different shape parameters. Eighty‐five designs, each with four dose groups of unequal size, were examined in scenarios ranging from low‐ to high‐dose placements and with a total number of animals set to 40, 80, or 200. For each simulation, a BMD value was estimated and compared with the “true” BMD. In general, redistribution of animals from higher to lower dose groups resulted in an improved precision of the calculated BMD value as long as dose placements were high enough to detect a significant trend in the dose–effect data with sufficient power. The improved BMD precision and the associated reduction of the number of animals exposed to the highest dose, where chemically induced distress is most likely to occur, are favorable for the reduction and refinement principles. The result thereby strengthen BMD‐aligned design of experiments as a means for more accurate hazard characterization along with animal welfare improvements.