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1 – 10 of 11
Article
Publication date: 17 May 2013

Paule Poulin, Lea Austen, Catherine M. Scott, Cameron D. Waddell, Elijah Dixon, Michelle Poulin and René Lafrenière

When introducing new health technologies, decision makers must integrate research evidence with local operational management information to guide decisions about whether and under…

Abstract

Purpose

When introducing new health technologies, decision makers must integrate research evidence with local operational management information to guide decisions about whether and under what conditions the technology will be used. Multi‐criteria decision analysis can support the adoption or prioritization of health interventions by using criteria to explicitly articulate the health organization's needs, limitations, and values in addition to evaluating evidence for safety and effectiveness. This paper seeks to describe the development of a framework to create agreed‐upon criteria and decision tools to enhance a pre‐existing local health technology assessment (HTA) decision support program.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors compiled a list of published criteria from the literature, consulted with experts to refine the criteria list, and used a modified Delphi process with a group of key stakeholders to review, modify, and validate each criterion. In a workshop setting, the criteria were used to create decision tools.

Findings

A set of user‐validated criteria for new health technology evaluation and adoption was developed and integrated into the local HTA decision support program. Technology evaluation and decision guideline tools were created using these criteria to ensure that the decision process is systematic, consistent, and transparent.

Practical implications

This framework can be used by others to develop decision‐making criteria and tools to enhance similar technology adoption programs.

Originality/value

The development of clear, user‐validated criteria for evaluating new technologies adds a critical element to improve decision‐making on technology adoption, and the decision tools ensure consistency, transparency, and real‐world relevance.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 27 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2006

Conor O’Leary, Errol Iselin and Divesh Sharma

Internal control evaluation is a critical component of the overall audit process, mandated by auditing standards worldwide. These standards divide internal control structures into…

5637

Abstract

Internal control evaluation is a critical component of the overall audit process, mandated by auditing standards worldwide. These standards divide internal control structures into a number of elements, summarised as the control environment, information systems, and control procedures. Significant research exists as to auditors’ evaluations of internal controls. However, little work appears to consider the elements’ inter‐actions and relative significance. This study attempts to gauge the relative importance external auditors assign to the three elements. 94 practicing auditors evaluated internal control structures in two fictitious companies, one with strong internal control elements throughout, the other with one of the three set at a lower reliability level. The results indicate auditors consider control environment the most important element of internal control. The effect of weakening this element was that auditors assessed all three elements and overall evaluation as less reliable. Varying the other two elements did not have such significant effects. The findings carry ramifications for the auditing profession, particularly in drafting auditing standards on risk assessment.

Details

Pacific Accounting Review, vol. 18 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0114-0582

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1991

John Price‐Wilkin

Libraries must actively support humanities text files, but we must remember that to focus exclusively on texts tied to specific systems is to put ourselves in opposition to the…

Abstract

Libraries must actively support humanities text files, but we must remember that to focus exclusively on texts tied to specific systems is to put ourselves in opposition to the needs of the researchers we intend to serve. A working model of the sort of system and resource provision that is appropriate is described. The system, one put in place at the University of Michigan, is the result of several years of discussions and investigation. While by no means the only model upon which to base such a service, it incorporates several features that are essential to the support of these materials: standardized, generalized data; the reliance on standards for the delivery of information; and remote use. Sidebars discuss ARTFL, a textual database; the Oxford Text Archive; InteLex; the Open Text Corporation; the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI); the machine‐readable version of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2d edition; and the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities.

Details

Library Hi Tech, vol. 9 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0737-8831

Article
Publication date: 5 July 2022

Stephen Brown

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate researchers’ understanding of place in general and psychogeography in particular.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate researchers’ understanding of place in general and psychogeography in particular.

Design/methodology/approach

Melding hauntology, autoethnography, pseudo-psychogeography and object-orientated ontology, the provocation explores aspects of east Belfast’s “C.S. Lewis Trail”.

Findings

Psychogeography, purportedly, is moribund. This provocation contends that latter-day developments in virtual reality, augmented reality, digital real estate platforms and “imaginary worlds” more generally, open up new horizons, and offer more opportunities, for the psychogeographically inclined.

Originality/value

The provocation’s originality inheres in the approach adopted not the research findings.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1940

WE wish for our readers a Good New Year. Whether it would be appropriate to wish readers a Happy New Year at this stage will depend upon many factors. Even before these words…

Abstract

WE wish for our readers a Good New Year. Whether it would be appropriate to wish readers a Happy New Year at this stage will depend upon many factors. Even before these words appear in type we may be involved in the more intense struggle for the very existence of our country which everyone seems to think must come sooner or later. The ultimate outcome of that we do not doubt, but while it continues we shall need all the strength, spiritual, mental and physical, that we possess. Nevertheless, it will be a good new year if we remain sensitive to all the needs and opportunities that surround us.

Details

New Library World, vol. 42 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1904

The action taken by the Council of the British Medical Association in promoting a Bill to reconstitute the Local Government Board will, it is to be hoped, receive the strong…

Abstract

The action taken by the Council of the British Medical Association in promoting a Bill to reconstitute the Local Government Board will, it is to be hoped, receive the strong support of public authorities and of all who are in any way interested in the efficient administration of the laws which, directly or indirectly, have a bearing on the health and general well‐being of the people. In the memorandum which precedes the draft of the Bill in question it is pointed out that the present “Board” is not, and probably never was, intended to be a working body for the despatch of business, that it is believed never to have met that the work of this department of State is growing in variety and importance, and that such work can only be satisfactorily transacted with the aid of persons possessing high professional qualifications, who, instead of being, as at present, merely the servants of the “Board” tendering advice only on invitation, would be able to initiate action in any direction deemed desirable. The British Medical Association have approached the matter from a medical point of view—as might naturally have been expected—and this course of action makes a somewhat weak plank in the platform of the reformers. The fourth clause of the draft of the Bill proposes that there should be four “additional” members of the Board, and that, of such additional members, one should be a barrister or solicitor, one a qualified medical officer of health, one a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and one a person experienced in the administration of the Poor‐law Acts. The work of the Local Government Board, however, is not confined to dealing with medical, engineering, and Poor‐law questions, and the presence of one or more fully‐qualified scientific experts would be absolutely necessary to secure the efficient administration of the food laws and the proper and adequate consideration of matters relating to water supply and sewage disposal. The popular notion still exists that the “doctor” is a universal scientific genius, and that, as the possessor of scientific knowledge and acumen, the next best article is the proprietor of the shop in the window of which are exhibited some three or four bottles of brilliantly‐coloured liquids inscribed with mysterious symbols. The influence of these popular ideas is to be seen in the tendency often exhibited by public authorities and even occasionally by the legislature and by Government departments to expect and call upon medical men to perform duties which neither by training nor by experience they are qualified to undertake. Medical Officers of Health of standing, and medical men of intelligence and repute are the last persons to wish to arrogate to themselves the possession of universal knowledge and capacity, and it is unfair and ridiculous to thrust work upon them which can only be properly carried out by specialists. If the Local Government Board is to be reconstituted and made a thing of life—and in the public interest it is urgently necessary that this should be done—the new department should comprise experts of the first rank in all the branches of science from which the knowledge essential for efficient administration can be drawn.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

Article
Publication date: 18 May 2012

Timothy C. Miller, Michael Cipriano and Robert J. Ramsay

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether auditors interpret the risk of material misstatement (RMM) in accordance with current standards' definition of inherent risk (IR)…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether auditors interpret the risk of material misstatement (RMM) in accordance with current standards' definition of inherent risk (IR). It is argued that controls should not be presumed when assessing inherent risk and that inherent risk should be considered separate from and prior to control risk when it is practical to do so. Because auditing standards explicitly require auditors to assess IR without consideration of internal controls (i.e. control risk (CR)), RMM should not be adjusted upward for control deficiencies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors survey and interview practicing auditors to gain an understanding of current risk assessment practice. They then evaluate whether their understanding of risk assessment is in line with current standards.

Findings

Contrary to auditing standards' definition of inherent risk, it appears that auditors presume some level of expected control effectiveness when assessing IR and they may increase RMM in response to internal control deficiencies. Such a presumption is inconsistent with the definition of inherent risk from the Auditing Standards Board (SAS No. 107), Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (AS 8), and International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (ISA 200). Such misinterpretation may be an inadvertent result of guidance provided by standard setters in the form of SAS No. 109 from the ASB, AS 12 from the PCAOB and ISA 315 from the IAASB, which suggest combining IR and CR into RMM.

Research limitations/implications

The research is limited both by the small sample size and the small number of risk factors investigated.

Practical implications

If auditors presume a level of controls in assessing inherent risk, they may reduce audit effectiveness by estimating a lower RMM than is appropriate.

Originality/value

This study presents insights on the interpretation and assessment of audit risk in audit environments where inherent risk is no longer automatically set to be at the maximum. Namely that due to the definition of inherent risk, control information should have a unidirectional downward effect on the risk of material misstatement.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 27 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1953

IT is rare nowadays to discover in the annual or other reports of libraries any reference to current losses of books. There are many sides to this, as to every problem. Formerly…

Abstract

IT is rare nowadays to discover in the annual or other reports of libraries any reference to current losses of books. There are many sides to this, as to every problem. Formerly it was held that a loss of one volume in an issue of a thousand was a reasonable loss; this our readers know. We do not recall a pronouncement based upon a count of stock and circulation recently. As our pages, and those of other library journals, have shown, the check and control of losses is a really costly business. Nevertheless, as long as we can remember, it has been impressed on librarians that we are custodians of a certain form of public property which we are expected to keep for as long in safety as that property retains its value. It can also be asserted that the discovery of whereabouts in the accounts of a bank a single shilling is missing may occupy hours of staff‐time; it is probably necessary to make it, and this was done a few years ago, and maybe is done now. To pose this problem nowadays, when there is so much else to be done, may be a little tactless. In the present conditions of public regard, or want of it, for the property of others, especially communal property, our eagerness to serve our people without let or hindrance, and the consequent removal of all barriers, wickets and entrance checks even in very busy libraries of large size—are we sure that we are absolved from all responsibility for the care of books?

Details

New Library World, vol. 54 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1907

“GIVE a dog a bad name and hang him,” is an aphorism which has been accepted for many years. But, like many other household words, it is not always true. Even if it were, the dog…

Abstract

“GIVE a dog a bad name and hang him,” is an aphorism which has been accepted for many years. But, like many other household words, it is not always true. Even if it were, the dog to be operated upon would probably prefer a gala day at his Tyburn Tree to being executed in an obscure back yard.

Details

New Library World, vol. 9 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1901

IN order to be able to discriminate with certainty between butter and such margarine as is sold in England, it is necessary to carry out two or three elaborate and delicate…

Abstract

IN order to be able to discriminate with certainty between butter and such margarine as is sold in England, it is necessary to carry out two or three elaborate and delicate chemical processes. But there has always been a craving by the public for some simple method of determining the genuineness of butter by means of which the necessary trouble could be dispensed with. It has been suggested that such easy detection would be possible if all margarine bought and sold in England were to be manufactured with some distinctive colouring added—light‐blue, for instance—or were to contain a small amount of phenolphthalein, so that the addition of a drop of a solution of caustic potash to a suspected sample would cause it to become pink if it were margarine, while nothing would occur if it were genuine butter. These methods, which have been put forward seriously, will be found on consideration to be unnecessary, and, indeed, absurd.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

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