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Truck appointment systems have been applied in critical container ports in the United States due to their potential to improve handling operations. This paper aims to develop a truck appointment system to optimise the total cost experiencing at the entrance of container terminals by managing truck arrivals and the number of service gates satisfying a given level of service.

The approximation of M_t/G/n_t queuing model is applied and integrated into a cost optimisation model to identify (1) the number of arrival trucks allowed at each time slot and (2) the number of service gates operating at each time slot that ensure the average waiting time is less than a designated time threshold. The optimisation model is solved by the Genetic Algorithm and tested with a case study. Its effectiveness is identified by comparing the model's outcomes with observed data and other recent studies.

The results indicate that the developed truck appointment system can provide more than threefold and twofold reductions of the total cost experiencing at the terminal entrance compared to the actual data and results from previous research, respectively.

The proposed approach provides applicably coordinated truck plans and operating service gates efficiently to decrease congestion, emission and expenses.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the economic benefits of managing an outpatient appointments system with technological innovations.

This study uses a quantitative methodological procedures aiming to evaluate the cost-benefit relation and also the payback of the management and operation of an outpatient appointments system with technological innovations.

This study found a great benefit-cost relation of 30.6 showing the great economic value and social impact of managing an outpatient appointments regulation system with technological innovations.

This study presents contribution to the literature discussion about the economic evaluation of the benefits of managing and operating more effective outpatient appointments systems because of important technological innovations.

This paper presents and discusses the most important and commonly used strategies and technological innovations to deal with and to manage an outpatient appointment regulation system aiming to reduce the patient no-show rates.

The findings of this study show a great benefit-cost relation of about 30.6 which is being reverted to the society.

There not exist many similar studies in the pertinent literature, mostly with the Brazilian contexts.

Avoiding truck congestion and peaks in landside activity is one of the challenges to container terminal managers. The spreading of truck arrivals at terminals can be facilitated by widening the opening hours of terminals at the landside. Israel’s Ministry of Transport has instituted the “Good Night Program”, involving monetary incentives for importers and exporters who deliver containers to ports at night.

This paper aims to quantitatively examine the market utility resulting from shifting traffic from daytime to nighttime, and analyzes customer considerations regarding nighttime transportation.

The external utility found in the traffic-economics model is quite similar to the economic incentive given to customers. Therefore, a significant increase of the incentive is not feasible.

Furthermore, it seems that an incentive method by itself is not effective enough, and does not motivate customers to act and find creative solutions to the obstacles they face. To achieve a considerable change in nighttime transport to Israeli ports, more effective methods should be examined.

Efficient delivery of integrated healthcare requires solid alliances and collaboration with stakeholders on a regular basis. Due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it has become necessary to explore new ways of delivering integrated healthcare, and virtual clinics have offered one solution and are likely to continue due to the uncertainty with COVID-19. This study aims to explore clinicians’ experiences of how efficient virtual elective knee clinics (VEKC) are in an orthopaedic setting in comparison to traditional face-to-face clinics.

The study utilised a mixed-methods study to obtain qualitative and quantitative data. This involved an anonymous online survey in addition to in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with a purposive sample of multidisciplinary colleagues who work with the VEKC in an acute hospital.

Three overarching themes and nine sub-themes emerged in the qualitative analysis. Overall, clinicians in both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study highlighted several ways that virtual clinics are efficient from both the patient and health service perspective. However, participants also highlighted barriers in relation to virtual clinics not being suitable for certain cohorts of patients and pathologies.

This is the first study in Ireland to provide valuable insights into the experiences of multidisciplinary clinicians using VEKC and their efficiency compared to traditional face-to-face clinics.

This paper evaluates an alternative queuing concept for marine container terminals that utilize a truck appointment system (TAS). Instead of having all lanes providing service to trucks with appointments, this study considers the case where walk-in lanes are provided to serve those trucks with no appointments or trucks with appointments but arrived late due to traffic congestion.

To enable the analysis of the proposed alternative queuing strategy, the queuing system is shown mathematically to be stationary. Due to the complexity of the model, a discrete event simulation (DES) model is used to obtain the average waiting number of trucks per lane for both types of service lanes: TAS-lanes and walk-in lanes.

The numerical experiment results indicated that the considered queuing strategy is most beneficial when the utilization of the TAS lanes is expected to be much higher than that of the walk-in lanes.

The novelty of this study is that it examines the scenario where trucks with appointments switch to the walk-in lanes upon arrival if the TAS-lane server is occupied and the walk-in lane server is not occupied. This queuing strategy/policy could reduce the average waiting time of trucks at marine container terminals. Approximation equations are provided to assist practitioners calculate the average truck queue length and the average truck queuing time for this type of queuing system.

The effectiveness of independent directors in making autonomous decisions for better corporate governance in organizations has often been questioned. This paper aims to investigate their role in company’s decision making in India and the reasons behind their ineffectiveness.

This paper examines the regulatory environment and ongoing reforms in which independent directors operate. It identifies crucial factors such as ownership patterns, the appointment and selection process that affect their autonomy. The analysis draws from newspaper articles, blogs, India’s regulatory requirements, The Companies Act and relevant related literature.

The findings reveal that the independence of directors remains largely in form but not in function. This paper recommends a fair and more robust selection through an independent authority, and disclosure of the resignations of independent directors. Independent directors should be given more powers and their risk-reward scheme should be analyzed.

The paper emphasizes the need for independent directors to be truly independent from the senior management, promoters, and other existing directors. It calls for tighter and more transparent appointment procedures to ensure that independent directors are not influenced by senior management and can bring objectivity to the company board.

Higher education institutions have undergone a transformation over the past few decades, from loosely coupled systems to more centrally managed organizations. Central to this ongoing development is the increasing competition for resources and reputation, driving higher education institutions to rationalize their structures and practices. In our study, we focused on changes in job advertisements for professorships in Germany from 1990 to 2010. Findings showed that the requirements stipulated by universities for professorial positions have become increasingly differentiated (and measurable) over time. In this context, competitive aspects, such as third-party funding, international orientation, or publications, have particularly come to the fore and grown significantly in importance. We discuss these findings in light of an increasing managerialization of higher education institutions, which has a direct effect on collegiality. We argue that the differentiation of professorial job profiles leads to even more formalized appointment processes and may push collegial governance into the background.

Routine general practice (GP) care is rarely comprehensively described in clinical trials. This paper examines routine GP care within the lifestyle approach to managing panic (LAMP) study. The aim of this paper is to describe/discuss routine GP care for panic disorder (PD) patients within both study arms in the LAMP study. An unblinded pragmatic randomised controlled trial in 15 East of England GP practices (2 primary care trusts). Participants met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria for PD with/without agoraphobia. Follow-up measures recorded at 20 weeks/10 months following randomisation. Control arm, unrestricted routine GP care (practice appointments, referrals and prescriptions). Trial arm, occupational therapy-led lifestyle treatment comprising lifestyle review of fluid intake, diet pattern, exercise, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. Primary outcome measure: beck anxiety inventory. At baseline, participants attended 2-3 times more GP appointments than population average, reducing at 10 months to 1.6 times population average for routine GP care and 0.97 population average for lifestyle arm. At 10 months, 33% fewer referrals (6 referrals; 0 mental health) than at baseline (9 referrals; 2 mental health) were made for lifestyle arm patients compared with 42% increase (from 12 referrals; 8 mental health at baseline to 17 referrals; 7 mental health) in GP care arm. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were prescribed most often. Benzodiazepines and beta-blockers were prescribed more often than tricyclic against current clinical guidelines. In conclusion, we found that PD patients at baseline were high healthcare resource users. Treatment in both study arms reduced resource use. Routine GP care requires further review for this patient group.

Readmissions to the hospital are expensive and can have negative health consequences for patients. Older adults are at greater risk of readmission. Patient perspectives are valuable in identifying areas for improvement in the transition of care. The purpose of this qualitative study is to increase our understanding of patients’ perspectives on the transition of care from hospital to primary care.

This study employs a qualitative methodology to conduct semi-structured interviews with patients who have been discharged from hospitals in the Ireland East Hospital Group region. Remote interviews were conducted with 18 participants from eight general practices. Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke.

The three main themes identified were communication, outpatient supports and patient education. Gaps in communication do occur, but patients are often too external to comment. Patients benefit from a wide variety of outpatient supports including general practice, family, carers, allied health professionals and voluntary organisations. Access and cost are barriers to these supports. Participants were generally positive towards proposed primary care-based interventions such as follow-up appointments with general practitioners (GPs) and education sessions.

This study highlights a number of areas for improvement in the transition of care in current practice including communication between services and access to outpatient care. It also suggests directions for further research, such as explorations of healthcare provider perspectives and pilot studies of readmission reduction interventions.

This study aims to provide insights into gender diversity in Pakistani boardrooms, particularly for the dominant family business type, which is strongly guided by (non-financial) family-related objectives when making business decisions, such as the appointment of board members. Pakistani companies operate within the framework of weak legal institutions and a traditionally highly patriarchal environment. This study examines how corporate decisions regarding the appointment of female board members play out in this socio-political and cultural environment.

Board composition and board characteristics were examined using hand-collected data from 213 listed family firms and non-family firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2017. Univariate analyses, probit regressions and robustness tests were performed.

Pakistani family firms have a significantly higher proportion of women on their boards than do non-family firms. They are also significantly more likely to appoint women to top positions, such as CEO or chairs.

Evidently, women are allowed to enter boards through family affiliations. Gender quotas appear an ineffective instrument for breaking through the “glass ceiling” in this socio-cultural environment. Thus, gender parity must entail the comprehensive promotion of women and the enforcement of legal reforms for structural and cultural change.

The analysis focuses on a Muslim-majority emerging Asian market that has been scarcely researched, thus offering new perspectives and insights into board composition and corporate governance that go beyond the well-studied Western countries.