scholarly journals An equity and efficiency integrated grid-to-level 2SFCA approach: spatial accessibility of multilevel healthcare

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaoyao Zhang ◽  
Xueqian Song ◽  
Jie Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Population Distribution ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Spatial Accessibility ◽  
Significant Heterogeneity ◽  
Behavior Simulation ◽  
Operational Solution ◽  
Equity And Efficiency ◽  
Primary Healthcare Centers ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract Background Equity of healthcare spatial access is essential for the health outcomes of medical investments and the welfare of populations, and efficiency of medical resource allocation is important for obtaining a supply-demand equilibrium with lower cost and higher outputs with limited inputs. However, the literature that involves both equity and efficiency in its analysis of healthcare spatial allocation is rare, and the spatial accessibility of multilevel healthcare is difficult to measure by traditional methods in a large region with diversified population distribution. Methods To assist in solving these issues, this paper aims to build an equity and efficiency integrated analytical framework by proposing a new “GTL-2SFCA” approach to analyze the spatial accessibility of multilevel healthcare; maximum and minimum floating catchments of different levels of healthcare were assigned to ensure a combination of universal search coverage and efficient hospitalization behavior simulation. Results The analytical framework was applied and tested in Hubei, China. Almost half of the residents (47.95%) and townships (44.98%) have access to both public general hospitals (PGHs) and primary healthcare centers (PHCs) services, 36.89% of the residents enjoy only one sufficient service, either PGHs or PHCs, and the remaining residents (15.16%) are faced with the risk of lacking access to both services. The results reveal that there are core-periphery effects of multilevel healthcare throughout Hubei and isolate clusters that have adequate access in the western region. The polarization effect of higher-level healthcare and the polycentric pattern of lower-level healthcare coexist. The multilevel healthcare shortage was identified in some areas in boundary and peripheral regions. Conclusions This study integrates equity and efficiency into the GTL-2SFCA framework, enriches the FCA series methodologies and provides a more operational solution for evaluating the access of residents in more sophisticated spatial units to each level of healthcare. By more significantly differing and quantifying the catchment area and distance decay effect, this methodology avoids overestimating or underestimating accessibility and discovers some imperceptible spatial inequities. This study has application value for researchers and decision-makers in other scenarios and regions with significant heterogeneity in medical resources and where the population has greater mobility.

scholarly journals E-Commerce Calls for Cyber-Security and Sustainability: How European Citizens Look for a Trusted Online Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6752
Author(s):  
Idiano D’Adamo ◽  
Rocío González-Sánchez ◽  
Maria Sonia Medina-Salgado ◽  
Davide Settembre-Blundo
Keyword(s):  
Cyber Security ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Different Levels

The pandemic has changed the citizens’ behavior, inducing them to avoid any real contact. This has given an incredible impulse to e-commerce; however, the complexity of the topic has not yet been adequately explored in the literature. To fill this gap, this study has a twofold purpose: (1) to investigate how European countries comparatively perform in e-commerce, and (2) to describe what are the most important challenges for the further expansion of e-commerce. To this end, we adopted a hybrid methodology based on multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and a Likert scale survey. The first method allows to us rank the e-commerce performance of different European countries, while the second one looks at the problems and barriers that characterize online shopping. The results of the study show that European countries have different sensitivities to the issue of cyber-security, and among them it is possible to identify three groups with different levels of attention to the critical issues of e-commerce. The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark belong to the group of countries most responsive to e-commerce. This request is part of a broader framework of transition toward sustainable development, i.e., a reliable digital environment where citizens and businesses can exercise their rights and freedoms in complete security. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, this paper adds a new baseline to the literature on the state of the art of e-commerce in Europe that addresses the effects of the pandemic. From a managerial point of view, decision makers can find in the results of this analysis a support for the setting of business strategies for the expansion of firms in certain markets and guidance for public authorities when defining regulatory policies for e-commerce.

scholarly journals Design for Circularity Guidelines for the EEE Sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3923
Author(s):  
Anton Berwald ◽  
Gergana Dimitrova ◽  
Thijs Feenstra ◽  
Joop Onnekink ◽  
Harm Peters ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Electronic Equipment ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Hazardous Substances ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Stakeholder Collaboration ◽  
Weee Recycling ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Different Levels

The increased diversity and complexity of plastics used in modern devices, such as electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), can have negative impacts on their recyclability. Today, the main economic driver for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recycling stems from metal recovery. WEEE plastics recycling, on the other hand, still represents a major challenge. Strategies like design ‘for’, but also the much younger concept of design ‘from’ recycling play a key role in closing the material loops within a circular economy. While these strategies are usually analysed separately, this brief report harmonises them in comprehensive Design for Circularity guidelines, established in a multi-stakeholder collaboration with industry leaders from the entire WEEE value chain. The guidelines were developed at the product and part levels. They are divided in five categories: (1) avoidance of hazardous substances; (2) enabling easy access and removal of hazardous or polluting parts; (3) use of recyclable materials; (4) use of material combinations and connections allowing easy liberation; (5) use of recycled materials. These guidelines are the first harmonised set to be released for the EEE industry. They can readily serve decision-makers from different levels, including product designers and manufacturers as well as policymakers.

The distributive knot: negotiators’ responsibility to untie complex demands

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Lempereur ◽  
Michele Pekar
Keyword(s):  
Demand Response ◽  
Automotive Industry ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business System ◽  
Response Dynamic ◽  
Managerial System ◽  
Deal Making ◽  
Different Levels

Purpose This article aims to explore the fundamental negotiation structure as a demand/response dynamic. It tests it in a complex business system, where a manager as a negotiator is confronted with multiple demands or pressures at different levels from a variety of stakeholders, both external and internal. Design/methodology/approach Based on concrete examples from the automotive industry, it presents an analytical framework to tackle all negotiation interactions. Findings This article suggests that it is possible to describe all negotiation interactions, whether they are simple or complex, through a demand/response framework. Originality/value This contribution examines a fundamental structure for negotiation responsibility – the demand/response dynamic – defining the mission of any negotiator in deal-making or dispute resolution as to try to supply a response to the expressed crossed demands. Second, the proposed theoretical model of demand/response is transposed and tested in a managerial system where a sales negotiator is confronted with demands from more sources, both external and internal, with the responsibility to satisfy as best as possible the various stakeholders and the capacity to address each of them with different moves.

scholarly journals Natural resource abundance and eminent domain: A case study from Africa

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franklin Obeng-Odoom
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Eminent Domain ◽  
Resource Abundance ◽  
Local Impacts ◽  
Compulsory Purchase ◽  
Oil City ◽  
Different Levels

This Viewpoint article draws on the doctrine of eminent domain (or compulsory purchase) as an analytical framework to analyse the regional and local impacts of a new source of oil. Sekondi-Takoradi, an oil city located in Ghana, West Africa, is used as a case study to explore the differentiated experiences of local people. The article shows that, although there are complex distributional issues that require different levels of compensation and betterment to be assessed and paid for, it is unlikely that they will, in fact, even be considered.

scholarly journals Quantile Regression for Panel Data: An Empirical Approach for Knowledge Spillovers Endogeneity

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Aldieri ◽  
Concetto Paolo Vinci
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Quantile Regression ◽  
Knowledge Spillovers ◽  
Spillover Effect ◽  
Technology Spillovers ◽  
Significant Heterogeneity ◽  
The Core ◽  
Endogenous Regressors ◽  
Different Levels

The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which knowledge spillovers effects are sensitive to different levels of innovation. We develop a theoretical model in which the core of spillover effect is showed and then we implement the empirical model to test for the results. In particular, we run the quantile regression for panel data estimator (Baker, Powell, & Smith, 2016), to correct the bias stemming from the endogenous regressors in a panel data sample. The findings identify a significant heterogeneity of technology spillovers across quantiles: the highest value of spillovers is observed at the lowest quartile of innovation distribution. The results might be interpreted to provide some useful implications for industrial policy strategy.

scholarly journals Emergence of Coordination in Growing Decision-Making Organizations: The Role of Complexity, Search Strategy, and Cost of Effort

Complexity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Friederike Wall
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Problem ◽  
Search Strategy ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Distributed Decision Making ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Nk Fitness Landscapes ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Different Levels

Coordination among decision-makers of an organization, each responsible for a certain partition of an overall decision-problem, is of crucial relevance with respect to the overall performance obtained. Among the challenges of coordination in distributed decision-making systems (DDMS) is to understand how environmental conditions like, for example, the complexity of the decision-problem to be solved, the problem’s predictability and its dynamics shape the adaptation of coordination mechanisms. These challenges apply to DDMS resided by human decision-makers like firms as well as to systems of artificial agents as studied in the domain of multiagent systems (MAS). It is well known that coordination for increasing decision-problems and, accordingly, growing organizations is in a particular tension between shaping the search for new solutions and setting appropriate constraints to deal with increasing size and intraorganizational complexity. Against this background, the paper studies the adaptation of coordination in the course of growing decision-making organizations. For this, an agent-based simulation model based on the framework of NK fitness landscapes is employed. The study controls for different levels of complexity of the overall decision-problem, different strategies of search for new solutions, and different levels of cost of effort to implement new solutions. The results suggest that, with respect to the emerging coordination mode, complexity subtly interferes with the search strategy employed and cost of effort. In particular, results support the conjecture that increasing complexity leads to more hierarchical coordination. However, the search strategy shapes the predominance of hierarchy in favor of granting more autonomy to decentralized decision-makers. Moreover, the study reveals that the cost of effort for implementing new solutions in conjunction with the search strategy may remarkably affect the emerging form of coordination. This could explain differences in prevailing coordination modes across different branches or technologies or could explain the emergence of contextually inferior modes of coordination.

scholarly journals Public Health Interventions with Harms and Benefits: A Graphical Framework for Evaluating Tradeoffs

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 978-989
Author(s):  
Allison L. Pitt ◽  
Jeremy D. Goldhaber-Fiebert ◽  
Margaret L. Brandeau
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Black Males ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Net Benefit ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Meat Price ◽  
Life Years ◽  
Equity And Efficiency ◽  
Decision Alternative

Background Evaluations of public health interventions typically report benefits and harms aggregated over the population. However, benefits and harms are not always evenly distributed. Examining disaggregated outcomes enables decision makers to consider health benefits and harms accruing to both intended intervention recipients and others in the population. Methods We provide a graphical framework for categorizing and comparing public health interventions that examines the distribution of benefit and harm between and within population subgroups for a single intervention and compares distributions of harm and benefit for multiple interventions. We demonstrate the framework through a case study of a hypothetical increase in the price of meat (5%, 10%, 25%, or 50%) that, via elasticity of demand, reduces consumption and consequently reduces body mass index. We examine how inequalities in benefits and harms (measured by quality-adjusted life-years) are distributed across a population of white and black males and females. Results A 50% meat price increase would yield the greatest net benefit to the population. However, because of reduced consumption among low-weight individuals, black males would bear disproportionate harm relative to the benefit they receive. With increasing meat price, the distribution of harm relative to benefit becomes less “internal” to those receiving benefit and more “distributed” to those not receiving commensurate benefit. When we segment the population by sex only, this result does not hold. Conclusions Disaggregating harms and benefits to understand their differential impact on subgroups can strongly affect which decision alternative is deemed optimal, as can the approach to segmenting the population. Our framework provides a useful tool for illuminating key tradeoffs relevant to harm-averse decision makers and those concerned with both equity and efficiency.

scholarly journals Subjective Probabilities on a State Space

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 172-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edi Karni
Keyword(s):  
State Space ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Subjective Probabilities ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Fundamental Difficulty ◽  
Definition Of

This paper extends the analytical framework of Karni (2011) to include a state space and advances a choice-based definition of subjective probabilities on this space. These probabilities represent the beliefs of Bayesian decision makers regarding the likelihoods of events, thus resolving a long-standing, fundamental difficulty with the definition of subjective probabilities. (JEL D81, D83)

The gender dimension in knowledge and technology transfer – the German case

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathinka Best ◽  
Anna Sinell ◽  
Marie Lena Heidingsfelder ◽  
Martina Schraudner
Keyword(s):  
Technology Transfer ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Wealth Creation ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Academic Entrepreneurs ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Knowledge And Technology Transfer

Purpose – Knowledge and technology transfer (KTT) and particularly academic entrepreneurship (Klofsten and Jones-Evans, 2000) are indispensable for economic growth and wealth creation. In many European countries including Germany, substantially fewer women than men participate in KTT. Recently, decision makers from scientific, political, and commercial organisations have increased their attention to the gender dimension (e.g. Moser, 2007; Schiebinger, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate in what ways and to what degree gender is currently integrated in German KTT. Design/methodology/approach – By following an abductive approach (Suddaby, 2006) and building upon existing models (Klofsten and Jones-Evans, 2000; Carlsson et al., 2002; Lundvall, 2010), the authors developed an analytical framework for evaluating the position of the gender dimension in KTT, conducted a comprehensive literature review, and 22 key informant interviews. Findings – The findings indicate that the gender dimension is barely integrated in German KTT, which particularly manifests itself through the fact that there are fewer than 10 per cent women among academic entrepreneurs. Current organisational practices and attitudes of decision makers continue to reinforce traditional gender roles and “typically male” approaches and behaviours (Connell, 2005; Redien-Collot, 2009). Originality/value – The authors were the first to synthesise a variety of sources into one unified framework and to rigorously analyse the gender dimension in German KTT – both quantitatively and qualitatively and on different levels. This framework can help decisions makers, both in- and outside of Germany, re-envision KTT practices, and create new opportunities for its diverse participants.

scholarly journals Challenges in a population policy toward migrations under the conditions of uneven distribution of population potentials in Serbia

2018 ◽  
pp. 651-662
Author(s):  
Danica Santic
Keyword(s):  
Population Distribution ◽  
Population Policy ◽  
Uneven Distribution ◽  
Geographical Pattern ◽  
High Concentration ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
Territorial Structure ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
Different Levels

Population distribution, as one of the key topics in geographical research, reflects the integrity of physical, social, economic and historical factors of certain area. This paper provides an overview of the spatial concentration of population in Serbia at the beginning of XXI century (Censuses 2002 and 2011). The analysis of population distribution and redistribution was performed at different levels of territorial structure of Serbia. The results indicate uneven distribution of population potentials (both in quantitative and qualitative ways) by expanding the area of extremely low and extremely high concentration. However, there remains a need for a broader scientific consideration of migration flows in order to create migration policies. Those policies are of interest to geographers because they represent attempts to manage the flow of people and to alter the geographical pattern of population distribution and characteristics.

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