Search results

Decision‐making in early stages of technology‐based service (TBS) innovation projects proves to be challenging. Current failure rates in service innovation are high, while the investments in innovation projects are substantial. Research suggests that enhancing decision‐making in the screening stage could substantially increase success rates. By investigating the screening decision process from an information processing perspective, this article aims to identify antecedents of effective TBS screening decision‐making, and could thus help companies to enhance their decision‐making and reduce innovation project failure rates.

Reviewing literature regarding service innovation, new product screening and decision‐making under uncertainty, we identify antecedents of decision‐making effectiveness in the TBS screening stage. Hypotheses are developed and tested with data from 251 TBS innovation projects.

The study demonstrates the importance of decision‐making team composition, information use and decision perspective for innovation success. Decision‐maker experience and perspective mediate effects of team composition.

Further research is needed to investigate screening decision‐making. The authors provide a research agenda based on our findings.

The study helps screening committees enhance their decision‐making process, by optimizing committee composition, and making better use of decision maker experience and information.

Little is known about how decision makers exploit information and previous experience in dealing with the high levels of ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty in a TBS proposal screening setting. This is the first study to approach the problem from an information processing perspective.

The purpose of this article is to show the importance of pre‐employment screening for hospitals. Pre‐employment screening in the hiring process is a must for hospitals, especially in the health care industry, where financial damages and lawsuits for hospitals recently increased because of negligent hiring. The information in this article is based on books about human resources in the health care industry, journals about medicine and law, and mostly articles from outsourced screening firms that provide service in the health care field. The scope of the article is to show the effectiveness of employee screening for hospitals in order to prevent or minimise lawsuits because of negligent hiring. Based on information about the benefits of employment screening in the health care industry, it is important for hospitals to implement “due diligence” by including screening programmes in their hiring process. The screening process can be done in‐house or be delegated to outside service providers that match the criteria. It is better to outsource these tasks so that hospitals can focus on other human resources tasks such as managing their employees to improve services for their visitors or customers.

One important study in the portfolio investment is the study of the optimal asset allocations. Markowitz is the pioneer of modern portfolio theory that analyses the performance of portfolio based on the mean (reward) and variance (risk). Motivated by the Markowitz's mean variance model, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new portfolio optimization model that takes into consideration both processes of purification and screening, which are key to constructing a Shariah-compliant portfolio. In practice, this paper introduces a stochastic purification variable and a probabilistic screening constraint into a portfolio model.

First, the authors study the stochastic nature of purification variable and apply it to both investment and dividend purification. Second, recognizing that the importance of on-going screening could adversely affect the portfolio strategy, the authors impose probabilistic constraints to control the risk of compliance change. They evaluate the proposed model by formulating the screening constraints at both asset and portfolio levels, together with three different financial screening divisors that are broadly used by the international Shariah boards. The authors also conduct an extensive empirical study using a sample of Shariah-compliant public companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

Based on the empirical example presented in this paper, the authors found that the purification variable in the proposed model is closer to the practice in the Sharia capital market in terms of the nature of the non-constant data, and this variable reduces the total income of portfolio which has not been captured in the previous literature. The authors also have successfully derived the portfolio screening constraint to mitigate the risk of the asset change to be non-compliant in the future.

Based on the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that proposed the stochastic purification and the dynamic of screening processes into the Shariah portfolio model. This paper also examines the impact of non-short-selling, purification and screening policies to the performance of Shariah portfolio.

Primary care plays a critical role in screening and management of depression. The purpose of this paper is to focus on leveraging the electronic health record (EHR) as well as work flow redesign to improve the efficiency and reliability of the process of depression screening in two adult primary care clinics of a rural academic institution in USA.

The authors utilized various process improvement tools from lean six sigma methodology including project charter, swim lane process maps, critical to quality tree, process control charts, fishbone diagrams, frequency impact matrix, mistake proofing and monitoring plan in Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control format. Interventions included change in depression screening tool, optimization of data entry in EHR. EHR data entry optimization; follow up of positive screen, staff training and EHR redesign.

Depression screening rate for office-based primary care visits improved from 17.0 percent at baseline to 75.9 percent in the post-intervention control phase (p < 0.001). Follow up of positive depression screen with Patient History Questionnaire-9 data collection remained above 90 percent. Duplication of depression screening increased from 0.6 percent initially to 11.7 percent and then decreased to 4.7 percent after optimization of data entry by patients and flow staff.

Impact of interventions on clinical outcomes could not be evaluated.

Successful implementation, sustainability and revision of a process improvement initiative to facilitate screening, follow up and management of depression in primary care requires accounting for voice of the process (performance metrics), system limitations and voice of the customer (staff and patients) to overcome various system, customer and human resource constraints.

This qualitative study set within Northern Ireland aims to explore professional perspectives on the application of evidence-informed practice to the adult safeguarding threshold screening process.

Data was gathered from seven social workers in one health and social care trust area, who perform the designated adult protection role, through individual semi-structured interviews in one region of Northern Ireland. The interview schedule comprised of a series of questions examining the role of the designated adult protection officer and included three vignettes (Appendix). A thematic analysis was undertaken using NVIVO software.

This paper reports main findings under the themes of: the role of the designated adult protection officer, threshold decision-making, evidence-informed practice and service improvement. One of the main findings was that professionals viewed the current process as too bureaucratic, and there was a desire to engage in more preventive safeguarding in collaboration with service users. There was a need to promote awareness of evidence-informed practice as it applies to the threshold screening process. Furthermore, the study raised the question of the need to consider the application of models or methods of assessment to the threshold screening process.

This in-depth exploration of the role of designated adult protection officers in Northern Ireland provides a valuable insight into the complexity involved in managing adult safeguarding referrals and investigations. This study adds to the existing knowledge base, identifies potential service improvements and highlights the gap in evidence-based practice as it applies to the threshold screening process. Threshold screening of adult safeguarding referrals remains a subjective process and is open to interpretation and differences in professional judgement. The study highlights the need to consider the application of quality improvement methodology to the threshold screening assessment and the need to promote the exchange of safeguarding knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to study the screen surface parameters of the double deck vibrating screen, in sections, to determine the influence of each part of the screen surface on the screening efficiency of the vibrating screen. Finally, the best screening parameters were calculated to obtain the best screening performance.

In this paper, the discrete element method is used to simulate the process of two-layer subsection screening. Response surface test was used to analyze the influence of various factors and their interactions on screening results. Finally, based on the binomial regression model of screening efficiency, the optimal combination of vibration parameters is calculated.

In the screening process of vibrating screen, due to the different screening environments in each area of the screen surface, the single-layer linear vibrating screen with equal screen surface parameters cannot obtain the best screening performance. Among the single factors, the effect of vibration frequency is the most significant.

To address the issue of single layer linear vibrating screens with equal screen surface parameters being unable to maintain optimal screening performance when handling large amounts of materials. This article proposes a double layer vibrating screen with different screen surface grids and screen surface angles to address the problem of low screening performance of traditional single layer linear vibrating screens.

The offender personality disorder (OPD) pathway faces the difficult task of identifying individuals who are eligible for their service from the entire probation caseload. The offender assessment system personality disorder (OASys PD) screen is a national screening tool used by the pathway to help with this task. This paper aims to describe an evaluation of the effectiveness of this plus an additional screening tool currently used to identify eligible individuals for the OPD service in the South of England. Recommendations for improvements were made as necessary.

A mixed methods design used a quantitative analysis of data on the effectiveness of the OASys PD for correctly identifying individuals and a thematic analysis of a focus-group conducted with clinicians within the service.

The analysis revealed a positive predictive value of the OASys PD screen of 72% and a negative predictive value of 91%. Key themes from the focus-group revealed what worked well about the screening process, what was difficult and what needed to be improved.

The OASys PD performed better than the clinicians had expected. It was recommended that the service continued to use the combination of the screening tool and the interviews with minor adjustments.

This is the first research study of its kind on the effectiveness of the OASys Personality Disorder Screening tool. Using such a tool with some caution (the addition of consultation) creates a useful and effective process for tackling the very difficult task of identifying people for the community component of the Offender Personality Disorder Service. This research provides some evidence for the validity of such a process that is currently used throughout the National Probation Service in England and Wales.

There is a great deal of research that has been done to investigate the investment characteristics of conventional socially responsible investment portfolios compared to their broader conventional counterparts. However, the impact of incorporating sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process has not so far been investigated. Therefore, the study aims to give empirical evidence as to whether or not incorporating sustainability socially responsible criteria in the traditional Sharia screening process has a significant impact on the investment characteristics of the Islamic investment portfolio.

The paper examines the investment characteristics of four groups of investment portfolios mainly, Dow Jones Global Index, Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index and Dow Jones Islamic Market Sustainability Index. To improve the robustness of the study, the analysis was carried out at different levels. First, absolute mean return and t‐test were used to examine whether the difference between the different groups of investments is statistically significant or not. Second, risk adjusted equilibrium models, both single‐index and Fama and French multi‐index, were employed. This is to control for different risk exposure and investment style bias associated with different investment portfolios examined.

The paper finds that neither the Sharia nor the sustainability screening process seems to have an adverse impact on the performance and systematic risk of the investment portfolios compared to their unrestricted conventional counterparts. Therefore, Muslim as well as socially responsible investors can choose investments that are consistent with their value systems and beliefs without being forced to sacrifice performance or expose to higher systematic risk.

The study contributes to the existing literature by giving new evidence on the impact of incorporating sustainability criteria into the traditional Sharia screening process that has not so far been investigated.

As for vibrating screen, the separation of granular materials is a very complicated process, particularly the screening with a swing trace. To study the characteristics of stratification and penetration in the swing vibrating screen, a three-dimensional numerical model was developed to simulate the screening process.

The discrete element method (DEM) was used to perform the numerical simulation, and the kinetic model of the swing screening was established. The regions of stratification and penetration were defined, and the mathematical functions relating fine particle ratio of stratification and penetration to time were presented using the least squares method.

The results show that the low value of frequency (5 and 10 Hz) has a limited effect on the stratification, while the obvious effect can be found at high frequency. A low frequencies or small swing angles may enhance the particle penetration. By studying the vibration parameters affecting the stratification and penetration rate, it is found that the frequency has more influence than the swing angle.

The higher screening efficiency and processing capacity can be further obtained for the swing vibrating screen by comparing with the linear vibrating screen. These results reveal the fundamental characteristics of particle motion in the swing screening, which will provide reliable guidance for studying the design optimization of vibrating screen.

This study explores the practical application of the Shariah screening process and how it could be enhanced by converging the same with the ethical screening of stocks.

This study adopts a qualitative research methodology by combining the qualitative descriptive approach and content analysis.

The findings of this research suggest that there is scope to converge ethical screening of stocks with Shariah Screening as the lex loci applicable to Shariah screening is derived from Shariah, which considers ethics as part of determining its rules.

The data from this study reveal several practical applications, the ultimate goal of which is to help the policymakers and stakeholders understand the relevance of the Shariah screening of stocks and get a streamlined screening process, paving the way to enhance the same using ethical screening criteria to develop its function to become much more relevant irrespective of the denomination of faiths.

This is original research, which is expected to contribute to understanding the extent to which Shariah screening can be enhanced by integrating the ethical stock screening dimension to it.