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Presents a survey of build‐up technologies based on the manufacture of microvia in thin dielectric sheets (< 100µm) deposited on PWB materials. These technologies will permit the PWB industry to manufacture high density interconnect substrates and answer the routeing requirements of high number I/Os, BGAs and new area array components. Bull Electronics Angers (BEA) has developed an HDI technology where microvias with hole diameters lower than 100µm are mechanically or laser drilled and interconnected lines at pitch down to 200µm are manufactured. In the frame of a European MEDEA project, ATEMAES, the design of an electronic subsystem manufactured by Magnetti Marelli in ceramic thick film technology has been adapted to the design rules of the HDI technology developed by Bull. This is part of an evaluation program for the use of HDI technology for automotive applications.

This paper aims to find ways to improve the performance of social and medical establishments through a new organizational structure and the use of quality management methods.

The research is based on an empirical study of a number of French establishments providing primary and secondary data, collected through interviews and records, on their management styles and results.

The research shows that the present management of such establishments lacks effectiveness and efficiency and that their networking and the implementation of quality principles and tools could improve their global performance.

The process of internal and external evaluation of establishments still being in progress, it is not possible yet to draw definitive conclusions on the effectiveness of the solutions proposed. The study will have to be completed when all the evaluations have taken place.

The findings of the study imply that a real new perspective is needed, and can be a reflection basis for establishments to reconsider their management in order to meet stakeholders' expectations.

The paper casts a new look on the management of homes for the elderly, in particular and organizations providing social services, in general. It can offer food for thought to all actors in this sector.

Developing a performance measure and reporting the results to support decision making at an individual level has yielded poor results in many health systems. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the factors associated with the dissemination of performance information that generate and support continuous improvement in health organizations.

A systematic data collection strategy that includes empirical and theoretical research published from 1980 to 2010, both qualitative and quantitative, was performed on Web of Science, Current Contents, EMBASE and MEDLINE. A narrative synthesis method was used to iteratively detail explicative processes that underlie the intervention. A classification and synthesis framework was developed, drawing on knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) literature. The sample consisted of 114 articles, including seven systematic or exhaustive reviews.

Results showed that dissemination in itself is not enough to produce improvement initiatives. Successful dissemination depends on various factors, which influence the way collective actors react to performance information such as the clarity of objectives, the relationships between stakeholders, the system's governance and the available incentives.

This review was limited to the process of knowledge dissemination in health systems and its utilization by users at the health organization level. Issues related to improvement initiatives deserve more attention.

Knowledge dissemination goes beyond better communication and should be considered as carefully as the measurement of performance. Choices pertaining to intervention should be continuously prompted by the concern to support organizational action.

While considerable attention was paid to the public reporting of performance information, this review sheds some light on a more promising avenue for changes and improvements, notably in public health systems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a light-trapping structure based on Ag nanograting for amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film solar cell. Silver nanopillar arrays on indium tin oxide layer of the a-Si thin-film solar cells were designed.

The effects of the geometrical parameters such as nanopillar radius (R) and array period (P) were investigated by using the finite element simulation.

The optimization results show that the absorption of the solar cell with Ag nanopillar structure and anti-reflection film is enhanced up to 29.5 per cent under AM1.5 illumination in the 300- to 800-nm wavelength range compared with the reference cell. Furthermore, physical mechanisms of absorption enhancement at different wavelength range are discussed according to the electrical field amplitude distributions in the solar cells.

The research is still in progress. Further studies mainly focus on the performance of solar cells with different nanograting materials.

This study provides a feasible method for light-trapping structure based on Ag nanograting for a-Si thin-film solar cell.

This study is promising for the design of a-Si thin-film solar cells with enhanced performance.

This paper aims to serve two main purposes. In the first instance it aims to it provide an overview addressing the state‐of‐the‐art in the area of activity recognition, in particular, in the area of object‐based activity recognition. This will provide the necessary material to inform relevant research communities of the latest developments in this area in addition to providing a reference for researchers and system developers who ware working towards the design and development of activity‐based context aware applications. In the second instance this paper introduces a novel approach to activity recognition based on the use of ontological modeling, representation and reasoning, aiming to consolidate and improve existing approaches in terms of scalability, applicability and easy‐of‐use.

The paper initially reviews the existing approaches and algorithms, which have been used for activity recognition in a number of related areas. From each of these, their strengths and weaknesses are discussed with particular emphasis being placed on the application domain of sensor enabled intelligent pervasive environments. Based on an analysis of existing solutions, the paper then proposes an integrated ontology‐based approach to activity recognition. The proposed approach adopts ontologies for modeling sensors, objects and activities, and exploits logical semantic reasoning for the purposes of activity recognition. This enables incremental progressive activity recognition at both coarse‐grained and fine‐grained levels. The approach has been considered within the realms of a real world activity recognition scenario in the context of assisted living within Smart Home environments.

Existing activity recognition methods are mainly based on probabilistic reasoning, which inherently suffer from a number of limitations such as ad hoc static models, data scarcity and scalability. Analysis of the state‐of‐the‐art has helped to identify a major gap between existing approaches and the need for novel recognition approaches posed by the emerging multimodal sensor technologies and context‐aware personalised activity‐based applications in intelligent pervasive environments. The proposed ontology based approach to activity recognition is believed to be the first of its kind, which provides an integrated framework‐based on the unified conceptual backbone, i.e. activity ontologies, addressing the lifecycle of activity recognition. The approach allows easy incorporation of domain knowledge and machine understandability, which facilitates interoperability, reusability and intelligent processing at a higher level of automation.

The comprehensive overview and critiques on existing work on activity recognition provide a valuable reference for researchers and system developers in related research communities. The proposed ontology‐based approach to activity recognition, in particular the recognition algorithm has been built on description logic based semantic reasoning and offers a promising alternative to traditional probabilistic methods. In addition, activities of daily living (ADL) activity ontologies in the context of smart homes have not been, to the best of one's knowledge, been produced elsewhere.

Lean-inspired approaches and performance management systems are being implemented in public healthcare organisations internationally. However, the literature is inconclusive regarding the benefits of these management tools and there is a lack of knowledge regarding processes for large-scale implementation of these tools. This article aims to describe the implementation process and to better understand how this process influences the mandated performance management system.

This research is based on a comparative case study of three healthcare organisations in Canada. Data consist documents, non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews with key actors (n = 30). Analysis is based on a sociotechnical approach to management tools that considers organisational context, and the tool's technical substrate, theory of action and managerial philosophy.

Results show that despite a standardised national mandate, the tool as implemented varied between organisations in terms of technical substrate and managerial philosophy. These variations are explained by the flexibility of the technical substrate, the lack of clarity of the managerial philosophy, and some contextual elements. Successful implementation may rest upon high hybridization of the tool on these different dimensions. A precise and prescribed technical substrate is not sufficient to guarantee implementation of a managerial philosophy.

Mandated implementation of management tools may be more successful if it is explicit on the managerial philosophy, the technical substrate and the link between the two, and if it provides some leeway to adapt both to the organisational context.

This is one of the few studies to describe and analyse the process involved in mandated large-scale implementation of performance management systems in public healthcare organisations.

This paper seeks to examine the innovative business model of Saigon Eye Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The paper takes the form of a case study.

The study identifies the categories underlying the high performance of the hospital system, namely leadership style, cause‐related marketing, market driving approach, HR and cost reduction, innovation stimulators, and brand building.

The research offers insight into the elements of the innovative business model of Saigon Eye Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, highlighting concepts of service management and social marketing in an emerging market context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of offering customer decision authority on customer satisfaction in credence services, and the moderating effects of customer persuasion knowledge and service provider credibility.

A video-based experiment is conducted to achieve high similarity to real service encounters. The video comprises three levels of customer authority while service provider credibility is manipulated. In a subsequent questionnaire, customer response and customer persuasion knowledge are measured.

Results suggest that greater decision authority increases customer satisfaction. However, customer persuasion knowledge and provider credibility together were found to moderate these effects. Offering decision autonomy is most important when source credibility is low and persuasion knowledge is high.

The study setting is an initial healthcare encounter. Other service settings and service provider communication behaviors, such as empathy, responding to customer queries, and length of encounter are not considered in this study but should be further studied.

The study confirms that offering decision authority to customers increases satisfaction only under certain circumstances. Customers are willing to relinquish authority to credible service providers who then direct customer decisions in order to maintain service quality. Offering decision autonomy to customers is suggested when provider credibility is low and customer persuasion knowledge is high.

Analysis of credence service encounters is based on agency theory. Specifically, this study highlights the role of customer (principal) persuasion knowledge, which acts as a qualifier for the principal-agent problem because it alerts the customer to possible persuasion attempts by the service provider, whereas agent credibility eases customer suspicion.

The aim of this paper is to contribute a conceptualization of the information and communication needs of medical tourists from Western countries in an Asian health care context.

Multi-phase, semi-structured, in-depth interviews and observations were conducted with 27 multi-source informants who have communication experience in the international healthcare setting.

Multi-level information provision should be used to address communicative incongruence in Asian healthcare provider – Western patient encounters as was self-reported by the participants and observed by authors. The use of an informative communication model is proposed in order to facilitate interaction and the effective transfer of information with Western patients to overcome negative, underlying emotions and enable autonomous decision making by the patients.

This exploratory study is focused on Western patients and Asian practitioners in Thailand. Future research in other countries and with patients from other geographical areas could expand to generalize findings.

Fostering information sharing with Western patients by using an integrative communication model can improve patient satisfaction and health outcomes. The need for developing and implementing these improved practices for communicating with Western patients is reflected by the healthcare industry's current developmental trends helping to lead to a future of health service internationalization.

This is the first empirical study to provide insights concerning the communication needs and coping strategies of Western patients with Asian doctors in developing countries.