Search results

Libraries need to develop information processing systems for evaluation, budgeting, planning, and operations. Electronic spreadsheets lend themselves to a variety of applications, but are time‐consuming to create. A model template and macros that can be used in many different types of library data analysis have been developed here. The procedures demonstrated here can build an essential set of tools for meeting fundamental goals of administrative efficiency, effective use of library resources, staff motivation, and rational policy making.

Librarians can harness technology to the behind‐the‐scenes labor of essential library operations. In acquisitions, technology can save hours by providing shortcuts for materials selection, budgeting, and ordering. Careful planning and the use of computer macros can eliminate duplication of effort, reduce mistakes, and keep the budget under complete control at the same time. By applying macros to acquisitions and budgeting, librarians can compress the acquisitions process to three types of documents: the purchase order, the budget‐line materials approval sheet, and the master budget. Purchase considerations are keyed into individual purchase orders, which become both planning and purchase documents. Single keystrokes copy tentative order items and total amounts into approvals sheet and master budget. Macros written for use with Excel are provided in the text and may be copied to set up the automated system described.

Discusses a procedure that transfers information from OCLC bibliographic records to a database management system such as dBASE. Discusses an overview of the system′s functions, the programming details, and transferring data to the database management systems. Surmises that the procedure offers advantages in data entry efficiency and later information conversion, as well as considerable scope for tailoring.

The indentation behaviour of sandwich panels is significant to incipient damage and is known to be affected by a number of dominant parameters. However, it is challenging not only to demonstrate how those few dominant parameters influence the indentation behaviour but also to ascertain that such influence was coupled to the variation of the other dominant parameters. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this work, the authors adopted a controllable quasi-static testing to carry out a diagnostic interrogation on the nature of incipient damage in laminate-skinned sandwich panels using hemispherical indenter and used photographs taken from the cross-sections of all the cut-up tested specimens, which were stopped both just before and after the initial critical loads, respectively, to confirm the mechanism of the incipient damage. Sandwich panels with aluminium honeycomb core had carbon/epoxy skins of two different thicknesses and lay-ups and hemispherical nosed indenter had three different diameters.

The authors found that: the incipient damage mechanism in all the panels was combined delamination in the skin and core crushing without debonding; doubling the skin thickness had the significant enhancement on critical load and indentation and this enhancement became greater for the larger indenter diameters; the indenter diameter had the moderate effect on critical load in the thick panels from 8 to 14 mm but had the negligible effect on thin panels and no effect on the thick panels from 14 to 20 mm; varying the skin lay-up or support had little effect on the indentation behaviour.

These findings were limited to the constant core density and core thickness. Varying the former significantly could alter the findings accordingly.

The results of this work should be tremendously useful to design and analysis in industrial applications of sandwich structures in aircraft, vehicles, marine vessels and transport carriages for situations involving localised loading and deformation.

The results of this research work is one of the very few that demonstrated a systematic understanding of the indentation behaviour characteristics of sandwich construction, which is vital to the establishment of indentation law for sandwich structures in future.

Although older women are at disproportionate risk of falling and becoming injured, little is known about the effect of falling on their quality of life. In this qualitative study, we examined the perceived causes of falling among older women, identified how older women's quality of life is influenced by falls, and explored how women can be empowered to prevent falls from occurring in their lives. Women who participated in focus groups indicated that the consequences of falling ranged in severity and duration and encompassed physical and psychosocial domains. The women took some ownership of preventing falls in their lives and believed that falls were caused by factors in the physical environment and personal health factors and practices. The results allow us to gain insight into the consequences of falls on the lives of older women, and that older women can influence change by preventing falls from occurring in their lives.

Trade‐offs among logistics cost and service elements often make transport selection analysis difficult, especially when demand is uncertain and carriers offer different rates and services. The spreadsheet environment offers a powerful, manager‐friendly medium for analysing these trade‐offs. This microcomputer application exploits some of the recent advances in spreadsheet technology to provide transport buyers with a tool for evaluating such complex logistical trade‐offs. This tool demonstrates how the emerging spreadsheet technology makes it relatively easy to develop a computer‐based model that can capture a rich level of detail that is beyond the scope of the current transport selection models using analytical approaches.

The purpose of this study is to solve the problem of healthcare waste management in developing countries. The buildup of medical waste has attracted the attention of all spheres of society due to the expanding population and developing economy. Timely collection and processing of medical waste are extremely important due to its potential hazards. Although the problem of planning medical waste management has been addressed in developed countries, it persists in several developing countries. This research is motivated by an example of a city in India characterized by a dense population, abundant health-care facilities and a lack of planning for managing large medical waste generated daily.

The authors address the problem of designing the network of collection and processing facilities for medical waste and optimizing the vehicle route that collects and transfers the waste between facilities. Due to distinct topographic restrictions in the considered city, the collection and transfer process needs to be conducted in two echelons – from hospitals to collection centers using smaller vehicles and then to the processing facilities using trucks. This work addresses these two problems as a two-echelon location-routing problem.

A mixed-integer programming model is developed to minimize the cost of opening the facilities and transporting medical waste. Several managerial insights are drawn up to assist planners and decision-makers.

This study follows a case study approach to provide a descriptive and prescriptive approach to hospital waste management in the ancient city of Varanasi. The city has witnessed unplanned growth over the years and is densely populated. The health-care facilities in the city have a large catchment area and attract patients from neighboring districts. The situation analysis based on secondary data and unstructured interviews of the stakeholders suggests that the ad hoc approach prevails in present hospital waste management in the city.

Given the focus of the special issue, the present paper combines both the academic and the practitioner perspectives to highlight several issues and emerging trends that will shape the role of marketing research in the new millennium. These include a redefinition of the marketing researcher, the on‐going nature of marketing research, qualitative research, quantitative research, international marketing research, Internet marketing research, and ethical issues in marketing research.

Traditional methods of capturing and determining logistics attribute importance have serious research limitations. The purpose of this paper is to introduce maximum difference (MD) scaling as a new research methodology that will improve validity in measuring logistics attribute importance, overcoming many of the limitations associated with traditional methods. In addition, this new research method will allow logistics researchers to identify meaningful need‐based segments, an important goal of logistics research.

This paper provides an overview of MD scaling along with important research advantages, limitations, and practical applications. Additionally, a detailed research process is put forth so that this technique can be implemented by logistics researchers. Finally, an application of this technique is presented to illustrate the research method.

The importance of truck driver satisfaction attributes was analyzed using bivariate correlation analysis as well as MD scaling analysis. The two sets of results are compared and contrasted. The resulting rank order of attributes is very different and MD scaling results are shown to possess important advantages. As a result of this analysis, MD scaling analysis allows for meaningful, need‐based segmentation analysis, resulting in two unique need‐based driver segments.

From a practitioner viewpoint, knowing which attributes are most important will help in investing scarce resources to improve decision making and raise a firm's ROI. Although a number of relevant applications exist, the most important may include examining: the importance of customer service attributes; the importance of logistics service quality attributes; and the importance of customer satisfaction attributes.

MD scaling is a relatively new research technique, a technique that has yet to be utilized or even explored in existing logistics and supply chain literature. Yet, evidence is mounting in other fields that suggest this technique has many important and unique advantages. This paper is the first overview, discussion, and application of this technique for logistics and supply chain management and creates a strong foundation for implementing MD scaling in future logistics and supply chain management research.

A recent Alberta teacher health study indicated that teachers on long‐term disability (LTD) benefits are, for the most part, left to their own devices regarding rehabilitation. Subsequently, the authors of that study (Jevne and Zingle, 1990) recommended the development of a “psychologically and educationally sound intervention” to assist the LTD teacher in maximizing recovery. In response to this recommendation, an adaptation of single‐session therapy was developed by Talman (1990) and a pilot intervention was carried out. Thirty‐three LTD teachers, volunteered to become part of this pilot project designed to provide individualized consultation and follow‐up based on an empowerment model. The main focus of these consultations was to determine the present state of wellness and to provide new insights and expand alternatives within a caring and safe therapeutic environment. The follow‐up debriefings and evaluations indicated that most individuals experienced substantive change in many areas of wellness during the time of the study. Without assuming direct causal relationship, it would seem that this single‐session therapy approach has potential as a model of brief intervention for the “disabled” teacher.