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One aspect of the Clinton Healthcare Reform programme is to assist health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in collecting and analysing data for the purpose of continuous quality improvement. The HEDIS 2.0 quality performance measurement model is currently in use and endorsed by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Outlines a process using HEDIS 2.0 by which an HMO can identify crucial problem areas and track the success of the solution process. Discusses the use of other relevant statistical tools.

Government fiscal officers, practitioners and policy makers constantly deal with uncertainties in revenue and expenditure projections. These uncertainties create difficulties in resource allocation decisions when significant deviations occur. Clearly, certain variables account for these uncertainties and knowing them prior to revenue and expenditure planning may minimize potentials for errors. This study seeks to determine the identities and reliability of these variables through the application of a measurement model to aggregate data under the formulation that certain variables create uncertainties and affect significantly both revenues and expenditures of state and local governments. The results reveal that inflation, population, unemployment rate, time, government bond rate, and real long-term debts per capita are the most reliable indicators of both revenues and expenditures.

With a view to enabling organisations provide a clear understanding of firm value creation, several national and supranational institutions have produced guidelines and frameworks for externally reporting intellectual capital (IC). In many cases regulators, the accounting profession and accounting scholars have driven these initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to summarise, analyse and compare the guidelines and frameworks that have been developed with a focus on externally reporting IC.

The paper analyses the assumptions underpinning 20 guidelines and frameworks that have been developed with a focus on reporting IC using a self-constructed framework.

The review resulted in a comparison of IC reporting guidelines and framework based on target audience, role of IC within the organisational strategic management process and reporting IC indicator. It provides an understanding of the state of the art in relation to external reporting of IC.

The insights provided by the comparison of the guidelines and frameworks are likely to be helpful for practitioners wanting to adopt or develop an IC reporting model for their organisation. Policy-makers will find these insights beneficial when attempting to refine existing frameworks and guidelines for reporting IC and in developing new ones to suit various circumstances. Also, this paper provides a useful review for academics.

This is the first paper to provide a review of a large number of business reporting guidelines and frameworks with a focus on IC. It is a valuable reference for practitioners, policy-makers and academics on IC reporting models.

THE advent of higher engine operating speeds and output, has made it increasingly difficult to assess the strength of crankshafts of modern internal combustion engines by analytical methods. Nevertheless, the evaluation of a reasonably accurate estimate of the loads acting on this component is of immense importance to the engine designer, and in this paper the writer reviews suitable treatment for application to the crankshaft of an in‐line and a radial engine.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid decision-making model for optimizing the initial design strategies of pre-sales housing, identifying factors affecting the initial design of housing, and developing different initial design approaches and strategies based on buyers’ preferences.

Indicators and factors in line with the local initial planning and design are created according to the design quality indicator framework. The important indicators and factors are screened out preliminarily with the fuzzy Delphi method and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory based analytic network process. The performances of two actual cases under similar site conditions are checked with regard to the overall residential sales rate and time on the market (TOM).

The result shows that the proposed model can effectively improve the sales rate, shorten the TOM and better complies with buyer design strategy demands, and thus positively correlating to economic value.

Pre-sales make possible the customized strategy of allowing future residents to participate in the housing design process. However, buyers’ participation in the design process is highly limited, and developers usually determine their planning and initial residential design strategies based on experience and intuition. With the proposed approach, the initial residential design of a project can be effectively intervened, so that home users can truly participate in the design, and the residential construction service can be provided in a unique, but non-universal way.

The shock absorber is an important component of vehicle suspension that attenuates the vehicle vibration. Its running state directly affects the performance of the vehicle suspension. The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively study the relationship between damping characteristics and air chamber and oil properties in single-tube pneumatic shock absorber.

Combined with the principle of fluid dynamics and hydraulic transmission technology, the rebound stroke and compression stroke mathematical models, and damping characteristics simulation model are established to investigate the effect of the air chamber and oil property on damping characteristics.

Research results show that the initial pressure of the air chamber is the key parameter which influences the damping characteristics of the shock absorber. The change of the initial pressure has more impact on damping force, and less impact on the speed characteristic; the initial volume of the air chamber almost has no effect on the damping characteristics. The density and viscosity of the oil have certain influence on the damping characteristics. Therefore, selecting suitable damping oil is very important.

Using Matlab/Simulink software to build simulation models, its results are very accurate. The conclusions can provide a theoretical reference for the structure design of a single-tube pneumatic shock absorber.

Hospital building maintenance management constitutes a pertinent issue of global concern for all healthcare stakeholders. In Malaysia, the maintenance management of hospital buildings is instrumental to the Government’s goal of providing efficient healthcare services to the Government's citizenry. However, there is a paucity of studies that have comprehensively explored all dimensions of hospital building defects in relation to maintenance management. Consequently, this study seeks to evaluate the defects of hospital buildings in Malaysia with the aim of proffering viable solutions for the rectification and prevention of the issue.

The study utilised a quantitative approach for data collection.

The findings indicated that cracked floors, floor tile failures, wall tiles failure, blocked water closets, and damaged windows were some of the flaws that degrade hospital buildings. The study’s outcomes reveal that defects not only deface the aesthetic appearance of hospital buildings but also inhibit the functionality of the buildings and depreciate the overall satisfaction.

Considering the indispensable role of hospital buildings in the grand scheme of healthcare service provision and ensuring the well-being of people, the issue of defects necessitates an urgent re-evaluation of the maintenance management practices of hospital buildings in Malaysia. Previous studies on the maintenance management of hospital buildings in Malaysia have focused primarily on design, safety, and construction.

This is particularly important because defects in hospital buildings across the country have recently led to incessant ceiling collapses, fire outbreaks, ceiling, roof collapses, and other structural failures. These problems are typically the result of poor maintenance management, exacerbated by poor design and construction. These disasters pose significant risks to the lives of hospital building users.

This study offers invaluable insights for maintenance organisations and maintenance department staff who are genuinely interested in improving hospital buildings’ maintenance management to optimise staff's performance and enhance the user satisfaction of hospital buildings in Malaysia and globally.

This paper aims to expand the knowledge about Lean Six Sigma (LSS) implementation in the public sector. By analyzing an LSS improvement initiative in a German municipality, examples of success, barriers and challenges are discussed. A comparison with literature regarding the production and service sectors unfolds similarities and differences.

The paper applies the action research method. Especially for the broad field of project management, methods focusing on actual experience from practice have been recommended by many researchers.

Implementations of LSS in the public sector seem to be particularly challenging and lengthy. Change and communication management have proved to be the most important aspects to successful acceptance, cooperation and improvement sustainability. In the analyzed cases, the needed volume of data could often not be procured. The applied Six Sigma methodology primarily included the DMAIC project phases as well as selected standard instruments. In contrast, the lean elements of LSS achieved more results and were appreciated by project team members.

The LSS application in this paper provides insights into practical implementation experience in a municipality, as well as lessons learned. Until now, most research addressed the single application of lean, continuous improvement or Six Sigma. This paper represents the first academic report of a LSS program in a German municipality and underlines the need for scientific support of those initiatives in further municipalities worldwide.

In order to improve the ride comfort of vehicle suspension, this paper first proposed a shock absorber with four-stage adjustable damping forces. The purpose of this paper is to validate its modeling and characteristics, indicator diagrams and velocity diagrams, which are the main research points.

In order to validate the fluid flow modeling, a series of mathematical modeling is established and solved by using Matlab/Simulink. An experiment rig based on electro-hydraulic loading servo system is designed to test the prototype. Finally, indicator diagram and velocity diagram are obtained and compared both in simulation and experiments.

Results indicate that at the same damping position, damping force will increase with the rise of rod’s velocity: if the rod’s velocity is fixed, the damping force changes apparently by altering the damping position. The shock absorber is softest at damping position 1, and it is hardest at damping position 4; although there is no any badly empty stroke and skewness in indicator diagram by simulation, a temporary empty stroke happens at maximum displacement of piston rob, both in rebound and compression strokes.

Compared with results of the simulation and experiments, the design of a four-stage damping adjustable shock absorber (FDASA) is validated correctly in application, and may improve the overall dynamic performance of vehicle.

This paper is mainly focused on the design and testing of an FDASA, which may obtain four-stages damping characteristics, that totally has a vital importance to improve the performance of vehicle suspension.

Understanding when an individual is being deceptive is an important part of police and criminal investigations. While investigators have developed multiple methods, the research literature has yet to fully explore some of the newer applied techniques. This study aims to investigate statement analysis, a recent approach in forensic linguistic analysis that has been applied to criminal investigations.

Real-world statements of individuals exposed as deceptive or truthful were used in the analyses. A behaviour sequence analysis approach is used to provide a timeline analysis of the individuals’ statements.

Results indicate that sequential patterns are different in deceptive statements compared to truthful statements. For example, deceptive statements were more likely to include vague words and temporal lacunas, to convince investigators into believing that the suspect was not present when the crime occurred. The sample in this research did not use one deceptive indicator, instead, electing to frequently change the order of deceptive indicators. Gaps in deception were also noted, and there was common repetition found in both the deceptive and truthful statements. While gaps are predicted to occur in truthful statements to reflect an absence of deception, gaps occurring in the deceptive statements are likely due to cognitive load.

The current research provides more support for using statement analysis in real-world criminal cases.