Broker Model Research Articles

CASE MANAGEMENT IN WORK WITH INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS: EXPERIENCE OF COMMUNAL AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS OF UKRAINE

With the beginning of the russian-Ukrainian war (2014), a significant part of the population from the zone of active hostilities left their homes in search of a calmer place for temporary residence. Most of them remained on the territory of Ukraine and obtained the status of an internally displaced person (IDP). A significant part crossed the borders of neighboring states in the status of “refugee”. Both, the first and the second, need support and help in places of temporary residence. In Ukraine, this category of population is provided with various types of payments and social services, depending on their needs. If the mechanism of social payments has already been worked out, then the mechanism of social services providing is only in the process of implementation. In Ukraine communal institutions and non-governmental organizations are providers of social services. These are mainly Social Service Centers/Centers for the social services provision or charitable foundations operating in territorial communities, which are places of temporary residence of internally displaced persons. In the context of the research, the algorithm of social services providing to internally displaced persons in territorial communities - places of temporary residence - in the context of case management/case management in communal and non-state owned organizations was studied. A qualitative study was conducted, due to which employees of organizations and internally displaced persons themselves were involved in order to study the specified issue. The interview was the main tool for data collection. 12 social workers/case managers of communal institutions of three regions and the Charitable Foundation “Caritas” and 6 internally displaced persons who are clients of these institutions were interviewed. It was found out that both communal institutions and non-governmental ones use the case management algorithm in working with a certain category of clients, which is called case management in the work of Caritas employees. Social workers of communal institutions strictly follow the stages of case management defined by the Law of Ukraine “On Social Services”, avoiding any emotional contact with IDPs. This model of work is close to the clinical model of case management. “Caritas” employees focus more on psycho-emotional support in their work with IDPs in the case management process, which is closer in type to the brokerage model. Caritas employees are more motivated to work. They also have a greater resource in planning assistance to IDPs. Based on the results of the analysis of the received data, recommendations were formulated to improve the work of social workers

Trading war: Evolving landscape of discount brokerage in India

The case study chronicles the evolution of Trading Tech sector in India, focusing on the emergence of the digital discount brokerage model. The case delves into the brokerage industry disruption in India, comprising primarily of Industry 4.0-based technological advancements, regulatory policies, and consumer demand shifts. India, a developing economy that was largely characterized by traditional modes of financial transactions, brokerage, and wealth management, shifting to predominantly digital modes with the advent of technology, makes an interesting context. This case sheds light on Zerodha and Groww, India’s biggest online discount brokerage companies, their background, and business model evolution. We intend to make the readers aware of the industry dynamics, the specific business model of the two leading brokerage firms in India, and their challenges. The readers can use various strategy and innovation frameworks to evaluate the strategic choices and business models adopted by the firms and the strategic challenges that need to be addressed to achieve sustained advantage in the financial services market.

Optimal cashback in a cooperative framework for peer-to-peer insurance coverages

AbstractThe challenges of using technology in the insurance field are opening new horizons for developing and distributing innovative products. Among these, peer-to-peer insurance schemes attract the interest of policyholders and insurance companies. Different types of peer-to-peer insurance have been introduced, from pure models to hybrid ones, as in the case of the broker model. In this paper, we focus on the broker model, where the groups of peers are formed by an insurance broker according to similar risk characteristics. The participants in the network pay an initial contribution defined by a cooperative rule that must be transparent and shared. A part or the whole of the collected contributions is set aside in a common fund. At the end of the year, if the common fund is sufficient to pay for the claims, the members obtain the excess over-retained premiums that is shared according to a capital allocation rule. We propose a cashback distribution mechanism based on the participant’s marginal contribution to the risk, framing the issue in a cooperative game and applying the concept of Shapley value to define an optimal allocation rule of the remaining capital. A numerical application based on a portfolio of motor third-party liability policies is developed to show how the model works.

정직한 중개인(honest broker)으로서 과학 자문

Politics or policy-making(administration) system tends to transfer decision-making functions to science in modern societies with increasing uncertain complexity. This tendency confines scientific discussion in extreme polarisation, which is tightly coupled to political win-lose. As science is more tightly coupled to politics and policy, the degree of freedom for each system is lowered, narrowing the room where policy alternatives are discussed and compromised. Under this analysis, the research proposes the honest broker model as an appropriate role model for scientific advisors in a modern society where uncertainty and value conflicts are growing. Scientific advisors do not prepare a single policy answer but rather present a variety of feasible scenarios and multiple policy alternatives within the scope of uncertainty. For scientific advisory to function as an honest intermediary, certain normative principles such as accountability separation between policy-making and scientific advisory system, transparency, diversity and openness should be established first. Finally, this paper attempts to apply the theoretical discussions to an institutional reformation of the current National Clinical Committee for Infectious Diseases. In this regard, the most urgent issue in the future is to institutionalize the science advice process. Such institutional settings enhance the influence of scientific advisory on policy while preventing the situation in which scientists are accused of political or legal responsibility for policy failure.

Assisting People with Psychosis to Overcome Obstacles to Living in the Community: Recovery-Oriented Case Management

<p>個案管理是社區精神病人精神照護服務的核心工作，而社區心理衛生中心在新版的精神衛生法中被賦予此項職責。已有明確的個案管理實證研究指出，資源連結模式有其侷限，而有效的元素包含穩固的治療性結盟、外展服務與為其需求提供連續性與整合性的服務。呼應衛生福利政策白皮書「以人為中心，社區為導向，康復為目標」的宣示，本文建議在精神病人個案管理服務中，康復導向應與問題導向並重，採用實證與促進康復的工作方法，並重視社區心理衛生中心對於服務使用者的心理與社會的可近性。方法包括：在分級納入康復的指標、彈性調整外展服務的焦點、將同儕納入個案管理服務中，以及架構社區心理衛生中心各類員工的康復導向在職教育訓練。</p> <p> </p><p>Case management is a core service in community mental health care for people with major mental illness and a responsibility granted to community mental health centers by the new Mental Health Act of 2022. Empirical case management studies have reported that limitations exist in broker model. Studies also reveal that effective elements include strong therapeutic alliance, outreach services, and needs-based continual and integrated services in case management process. In response to the White Paper of the National Health and Welfare Policy 2025 in which person-centered, community-oriented, and recovery-targeted care is emphasized, we suggest that case management services targeting people with psychosis be both recovery-oriented and problem-oriented. Evidence-based and recovery-promoting care approaches should be adopted, and emphasis must be placed on the psychological and social accessibility of the community mental health centers to service users. This involves introducing recovery indicators into the client grading system, flexibly adjusting the focus of outreach services, involving peer support and workers in case management services, and establishing recovery-oriented on-the-job education for all employees in community mental health centers.</p> <p> </p>

CoMCLOUD: Virtual Machine Coalition for Multi-Tier Applications Over Multi-Cloud Environments

Applications hosted in commercial clouds are typically multi-tier and comprise multiple tightly coupled virtual machines (VMs). Service providers (SPs) cater to the users using VM instances with different configurations and pricing depending on the location of the data center (DC) hosting the VMs. However, selecting VMs to host multi-tier applications is challenging due to the trade-off between cost and quality of service (QoS) depending on the placement of VMs. This paper proposes a multi-cloud broker model called <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">CoMCLOUD</i> to select a sub-optimal VM coalition for multi-tier applications from an SP with minimum coalition pricing and maximum QoS. To strike a trade-off between the cost and QoS, we use an ant-colony-based optimization technique. The overall service selection game is modeled as a first-price sealed-bid auction aimed at maximizing the overall revenue of SPs. Further, as the hosted VMs often face demand spikes, we present a parallel migration strategy to migrate VMs with minimum disruption time. Detailed experiments show that our approach can improve the federation profit up to 23% at the expense of increased latency of approximately 15%, compared to the baselines.

Proptech: A qualitative analysis of online real estate brokerage agencies in Spain

Purpose: The arrival of new companies that are more technological and scalable to the real estate sector has caused a revolution in a very conservative and not very innovative industry. The main objective of this research is to characterize the business model of proptech online brokerage companies in home sales in Spain, based on the traditional agency model. Design/methodology: Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with the CEOs and managers of six proptech online real estate brokerage agencies in Spain. Their content was analyzed by means of the study and comparison of common patterns. Findings: During the digitalization process of the brokerage, a regression was detected back to more classic procedures typically found in traditional agencies, thus establishing an important difference as compared to other more transparent markets. Accordingly, a convergence occurs between the different real estate brokerage models (online and traditional), resulting in a hybrid model. Research limitations: The limited number of agencies that operate in the online mode in Spain makes the sample size quite small. Practical implications: The results contribute greater transparency to a traditional sector characterized by its opacity, and they give visibility to the changes that are currently taking place, facilitating information to both professionals and users. Social implications: It contributes to the fulfillment of Sustainable Development Goal number 9, concerning the promotion of development-oriented policies that support the creation of decent jobs, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. Originality/value: It expands the scientific literature dedicated to online real estate brokerage in Spain, given that as of today, we have no knowledge of any other published academic work on this topic. The research contributes to the vision that new sector agents have of it and those changes that are occurring within it.

Design and Application of e-Commerce Platform System Based on Blockchain Technology on the Internet of Things

Focusing on the problems of platform monopoly, power rent-seeking and high cost in the current Internet e-commerce platform system, a new method and paradigm of e-commerce platform is introduced in this paper based on the blockchain, smart contract technology, tokenomics thought, and e-commerce professional theory. The interconnection of e-commerce information value chain can be realized by means of blockchain related technology and the construction of circulation system, payment system, and credit system in the core module of e-commerce platform. From the perspective of users of e-commerce platform, the optimizing of the application process and operation structure of e-commerce operation can significantly improve users’ service experience, avoid information disclosure risk, and reduce process redundancy as well. The prominent advantages of this e-commerce platform include data security, data sharing, shopping cost reduction, monopoly elimination, community construction, and commercial form innovation. The e-commerce function was originally defined as building an e-commerce platform, optimizing and promoting various search products, maintaining, refactoring and extending the e-commerce platform, and developing and monetizing online products. It has 6 operating modes: direct sales model, yellow pages model, coupon model, brokerage model, reservation model, and market model.

FedRec: Trusted rank-based recommender scheme for service provisioning in federated cloud environment

The emergence of on-demand service provisioning by Federated Cloud Providers (FCPs) to Cloud Users (CU) has fuelled significant innovations in cloud provisioning models. Owing to the massive traffic, massive CU resource requests are sent to FCPs, and appropriate service recommendations are sent by FCPs. Currently, the Fourth-Generation (4G)-Long Term Evolution (LTE) network faces bottlenecks that affect end-user throughput and latency. Moreover, the data is exchanged among heterogeneous stakeholders, and thus trust is a prime concern. To address these limitations, the paper proposes a Blockchain (BC)-leveraged rank-based recommender scheme, FedRec, to expedite secure and trusted Cloud Service Provisioning (CSP) to the CU through the FCP at the backdrop of base 5G communication service. The scheme operates in three phases. In the first phase, a BC-integrated request-response broker model is formulated between the CU, Cloud Brokers (BR), and the FCP, where a CU service request is forwarded through the BR to different FCPs. For service requests, Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is supported by 5G-enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) service. In the next phase, a weighted matching recommender model is proposed at the FCP sites based on a novel Ranking-Based Recommender (RBR) model based on the CU requests. In the final phase, based on the matching recommendations between the CU and the FCP, Smart Contracts (SC) are executed, and resource provisioning data is stored in the Interplanetary File Systems (IPFS) that expedite the block validations. The proposed scheme FedRec is compared in terms of SC evaluation and formal verification. In simulation, FedRec achieves a reduction of 27.55% in chain storage and a transaction throughput of 43.5074 Mbps at 150 blocks. For the IPFS, we have achieved a bandwidth improvement of 17.91%. In the RBR models, the maximum obtained hit ratio is 0.9314 ​at 200 million CU requests, showing an improvement of 1.2% in average servicing latency over non-RBR models and a maximization trade-off of QoE index of 2.7688 at the flow request 1.088 and at granted service price of USD 1.559 million to FCP for provided services. The obtained results indicate the viability of the proposed scheme against traditional approaches.

Brokerage System for Integration of LrWPAN Technologies.

The prevalent demand for remote data sharing and connectivity has catalysed the development of many wireless network technologies. However, low-power and low-rate wireless network technologies have emerged as the preferred choice (due to cheap procurement and maintenance cost, efficiency, and adaptability). Currently, these groups of wireless networks are adopted in homes, health, and business sectors. The increase in existing WSNs has resulted in the incompatibility of wireless network protocols and poses a problem that results in high acquisition or maintenance costs, increased complexity, reliability inadequacies in some instances, lack of uniformity within similar standards, and high energy consumption. To address this problem, we develop a novel machine-to-machine software-based brokerage application (known as JosNet) for interoperability and integration between Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and Thread wireless network technologies. JosNet allows one network protocol to exchange data packets or commands with each other. In this paper, we present a novel working network brokerage model for a one-to-one network protocol to communication (e.g., from Zigbee to Bluetooth) or one-to-many network protocol communication (e.g., from Bluetooth to Zigbee, Thread, etc.) to securely send messages in a large-scale routing process for short or long-range connections. We also present a large-scale implementation of JosNet using a routing table for large areas. The results show an industry standard performance for end-to-end latency time and throughput.

Health Care Access Brokerage by School Employees for Immigrant Mexican and Indigenous Guatemalan Farmworking Families in a Connecticut Elementary School

It is known that Florida school employees known as Migrant Advocates facilitate or broker MSF health care access for migrant and seasonal farmworker (MSF) families, but it is not known how states without a Migrant Education Program might also broker MSF health care access. To address this, present study examines the role of school employees in brokering health care access to immigrant Mexican and Indigenous Guatemalan MSF families in Connecticut. Informed by prior work, interviews (n = 12) with parents and elementary school employees showed that (1) a vast array of non-Migrant Advocate school employees, mostly Latinx women, directly brokered physical and psychosocial MSF health care access, often through developing deep social relationships and (2) barriers to brokerage included language inaccessibility, school employee gaps in knowledge of MSF health care needs, and transportation and related structural issues. Importantly, the school’s location near MSF homes is an important contributor to the success of the school’s brokerage efforts. Findings offer insight into how a school health broker model might be implemented, and advance understandings of MSF health and health care access.

What Is at Stake in the Interaction between Media Arts and Cultural Industries in Lebanon

What Is at Stake in the Interaction between Media Arts and Cultural Industries in Lebanon

The structure and temporal changes in brokerage typologies applied to a dynamic sow herd

Brokerage typologies represent an aspect of sociality by describing the social structure, at a group and individual level, concerning the direction and flow of behaviours or information within, and between subgroups. While animal studies have identified keystone individuals, capable of imparting positive and negative effects on conspecifics, none have characterised social networks based upon brokerage roles. This study applied a brokerage model to a dynamic breeding sow herd (average size = 78) to investigate the direction aggression flows within and between subgroups (based upon connectedness). In total, 42 h of video observations were obtained over two production cycles. Each production cycle covered 21 days, and behavioural observations occurred on days 1, 2, 3, 7, 14, 20, 21. The social network metrics of degree centrality (number of interactions) and brokerage position (the extent to which individuals lie on the directed path between two previously unconnected individuals) were analysed to describe the directional flow of agonistic behaviours within the networks and investigate the relationship between sociality and brokerage typology. Brokerage typologies are described as coordinators, gatekeepers, representatives, consultants, and liaisons. Aggressive behaviours included biting, thrusting, chasing, and displacement. The results revealed all pigs have brokering capability regardless of social connectivity, with a relationship between the level at which a sow is interacting and the brokerage typology they typically engage. Coordinating and consulting behaviour was typically engaged in by the highest connected sows. Significant differences in initiated behaviour (outdegree centrality) and received behaviour (indegree centrality) were found between the specific brokering roles in both production cycles, with coordinators found to be the most aggressive individuals in both networks. Results also reveal a consistency in group-level structure over two production cycles with further consistency in individual behaviour by coordinators and consultants. This preliminary study of brokerage types in a dynamic sow herd demonstrates the capacity to extend the traditional social network metrics currently applied in animal science research. It further provides an individual-level criterion to describe how behaviour is enabled to flow through a network.

Energy Trading among Power Grid and Renewable Energy Sources: A Dynamic Pricing and Demand Scheme for Profit Maximization.

With the technical growth and the reduction of deployment cost for distributed energy resources (DERs), such as solar photovoltaic (PV), energy trading has been recently encouraged to energy consumers, which can sell energy from their own energy storage system (ESS). Meanwhile, due to the unprecedented rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, some countries (e.g., Republic of Korea and India) have mandated using a renewable energy certificate (REC) in energy trading markets. In this paper, we propose an energy broker model to boost energy trading between the existing power grid and energy consumers. In particular, to maximize the profits of energy consumers and the energy provider, the proposed energy broker is in charge of deciding the optimal demand and dynamic price of energy in an REC-based energy trading market. In this solution, the smart agents (e.g., IoT intelligent devices) of consumers exchange energy trading associated information, including the amount of energy generation, price and REC. For deciding the optimal demand and dynamic pricing, we formulate convex optimization problems using dual decomposition. Through a numerical simulation analysis, we compare the performance of the proposed dynamic pricing strategy with the conventional pricing strategies. Results show that the proposed dynamic pricing and demand control strategies can encourage energy trading by allowing RECs trading of the conventional power grid.

미국 중개보수 분할의 국내 시사점 연구

In Korea, brokerage firms have been managing the traditional brokerage commission split model, but the United States has been seeking continuous development of brokerage firms by developing various brokerage commission models for the survival and expansion of brokers. Keller Williams and eXp Realty introduced cloud brokerage to reduce fixed costs, to reduce broker acquisition costs, and incentives to strengthen broker belonging. In particular, there are many implications of the eXp Realty revenue sharing model, which has little initial franchise cost, and is a cloud-based real estate brokerage program that divides profits with expert support without fees for desks and tasks. It encourages start-ups and intermediaries with unique models that give incentives to real estate agents and brokers. It also develops models of three ways in which real estate agents and intermediaries generate revenue, providing real estate sales, revenue sharing and shareholder revenue. It offers a revenue-sharing program that allows real estate agents and brokers to receive both revenue and common stock incentives. In addition, real estate brokers and agents build their own businesses by owning direct equity as shareholders and business partners. In particular, it has revolutionized the existing real estate brokerage model by providing an opportunity for compensation for common stock. Cloud-based brokerage operated by brokers provides maximum value to real estate agents and brokers while building a global brand. The management method of these real estate brokerage firms has many implications for domestic brokerage firms.

Risk sharing under the dominant peer‐to‐peer property and casualty insurance business models

AbstractThis paper purposes to formalize the three business models dominating peer‐to‐peer (P2P) property and casualty insurance: the self‐governing model, the broker model, and the carrier model. The former one develops outside the insurance market whereas the latter ones may originate from the insurance industry, by partnering with an existing company or by issuing a new generation of participating insurance policies where part of the risk is shared within a community and higher losses, exceeding the community's risk‐bearing capacity are covered by an insurance or reinsurance company. The present paper proposes an actuarial modeling based on conditional mean risk sharing, to support the development of this new P2P insurance offer under each of the three business models. In addition, several specific questions are also addressed in the self‐governing model. Considering an economic agent who has to select the optimal pool for a risk to be shared with other participants, it is shown that uniform comparison of the Lorenz or concentration curves associated to the respective total losses of the pools under consideration allows the agent to decide which pool is preferable.

Diffused effort, asset heterogeneity, and real estate brokerage

AbstractWe generalize the classic Williams (1998, Review of Financial Studies, 11, 239–280) brokerage model by introducing diffused effort and asset heterogeneity. The term “diffused effort” refers to the fact that an agent can cross‐utilize effort spending on one listing to another . One counterintuitive finding in Williams' paper is the absence of the agency problem . As a special case in our model, we recover the agency problem. We demonstrate the positive externality due to the diffused effort and show it depends on the agent's inventory size. Hence, there is a trade‐off between agents' effort committed to existing listings and expanding network size by soliciting new listings.

The Commissions Paid to Brokers for Fully Insured Health Insurance Plans.

Insurance agents and brokers play an important role in facilitating the contracting of fully insured health insurance and pharmacy benefit plans for U.S. employers. They are primarily compensated with a commission charged back to the plan. Using a national sample that covered 11.7 million employees enrolled in 33,689 health plans in 2017, we found that a plan's commission (median: $178) was positively associated with a plan's premium (coefficient: 0.01 for the full sample and 0.03 for small plans, p < .001) after controlling for the number of enrollees. The commission-to-premium ratio was greater for smaller plans and plans offered by nonmajor insurance companies, and varied by geographic region. Policy makers should consider improving transparency of the commission to facilitate employers making efficient broker contracting and plan purchasing decisions. The fee-based brokerage model has the potential to help employers and workers contain health care spending.

Charging renters or not? One-side versus both-side brokerage model for online rental platforms

Abstract In this paper, we analyze how an online rental platform should choose between the one-side brokerage model (charging hosts only) and the both-side brokerage model (charging both hosts and renters). We consider a setting where a monopolistic platform connects hosts on one side with renters on the other. Renters are heterogeneous in valuing trust: Type 1 renters undervalue trust and Type 2 renters fully value trust. We first reveal that the existence of Type 1 renters makes it possible for the one-side brokerage model to be the preferable choice for a platform. Our results also indicate that it is more profitable for the platform to adopt the both-side brokerage model rather than the one-side brokerage model when the number of Type 1 renters is small and/or the cost coefficient to enable renter-side trust is small. Finally, we examine how the chosen brokerage model affects social welfare and find that only the one-side brokerage model can generate a win–win outcome for both the platform and the social planner.

The Research-Practice Gap in Music Education: Applying Brokerage Structures to Guide Future Inquiry

The research-practice gap in music education has been discussed for decades. Many attempts have been made to explain the gap and offer recommendations for bridging it. However, few systematic examinations of the gap have been undertaken. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how a model of brokerage structures can be applied to guide future inquiry into the gap. Context around the research-practice gap in music education is provided, the concept of brokerage models in social settings is explained, and then four brokerage structures are elaborated on and applied.