Capability Profile Research Articles

“Einsatzchirurgie”—experiences of German military surgeons in Afghanistan

In 2010, the world witnessed 32 wars and other armed conflicts. Epidemiological analyses of mechanisms and patterns of injury of soldiers sent into these conflicts can be utilised to identify the surgical expertise that is required in a combat setting providing important parameters to adjust medical infrastructure and training requirements for future Military Surgeons. Today in 2011, the German Bundeswehr runs a combat support hospital (role 3) in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan providing a multidisciplinary capability profile. Furthermore, there are two role 2 medical treatment facilities (rescue centres) in Kunduz and Feyzabad for life-saving procedures and damage control operations in order to enable rapid evacuation to a higher level of care. Epidemiological analyses of injury patterns and mechanisms have shown that 2,299 soldiers of the coalition forces have been killed in Afghanistan until January 15, 2011. Of these, 21.4% died in non-hostile action (2010). The leading causes of injury were explosive devices (up to 60%) followed by gunshot wounds. Chest or abdominal injuries (40%) and traumatic brain injuries (35%) were the main causes of death for soldiers killed in action. The analysis of all surgical procedures performed in Northern Afghanistan demonstrates that most of the patients who underwent surgery until 2009 were local civilians. Most of these operations involved osteosynthesis and soft tissue debridement. Due to the recently aggravated tactical situation within the theatre, a significant increase of mass casualty situations and combat-related injuries was noticed. The casualties in this military conflict present with injury patterns that are not seen in routine surgical practice at home. In an era of increasing surgical sub-specialisation, the deployed military surgeon needs to acquire and maintain a wide range of skills including a variety of surgical fields. In order to create this kind of military surgeon, the so-called DUO plus model for the training of military surgeons (specialisation general surgery plus a second sub-specialisation either in visceral surgery or orthopaedics/trauma surgery) has been developed in the Joint Medical Service of the German Bundeswehr. Other relevant skills, such as emergency neurotraumatology, battlefield surgery with integrated oral and craniomaxillofacial surgery, and emergency gynaecology are also integrated into this concept and will be addressed in special courses. On successful completion of this training programme, military surgeons will be officially appointed as "Einsatzchirurg" for a duration of 5 years. After this time, it will be obligatory to renew this "combat ready" status. The buildings and materials in German military medical treatment facilities provide for excellent working conditions. The training programme for military surgeons in its end-2010 version has been designed specifically with data about injury pattern and non-battle diseases as well as the political situation and professional requirements in the civilian sphere in mind.

The Semantic Model of Manufacturing Services

Manufacturing services are basic building blocks for the agile collaborating business applications. It represents a new model in the utilization of the networked resources, by which self-contained, modular applications can be described, published, located and dynamically invoked in a programming language independent way. In this paper, a general formal model for manufacturing services is proposed by wrapping manufacturing resource into semantic web service. Thus resources sharing requirements are translated into service’s capacity requests. As the key part of manufacturing services, manufacturing capability profile is presented which has four particular attribute sets to represent the infomation what enterprises really care about. Finally, ontology specifications of manufacturing services are established by extending OWL-S, which provides a standard vocabulary to support in an unambiguous, computer-understandable form.

How do IT capabilities create strategic value? Toward greater integration of insights from reductionistic and holistic approaches

After more than two decades of intensive research, researchers are still struggling to explain the strategic value of information technology (IT) capabilities. The current study suggests that sufficient advancement has not been made in this area of research because of the gap between the richness of theoretical formulations and the minimalism of the reductionistic approach taken to test them. While theoretical formulations describe complex relationships between IT capabilities and competitive advantage, reductionistic explanations rely on models that represent the integration of simple relationships. This area of research can, therefore, benefit from the wider adoption of a holistic approach that attributes competitive advantage to profiles of IT capabilities. This study draws on the resource-based view and configurational theory to develop two reductionistic (direct and mediation) and two holistic (gestalt and profile-deviation) models of IT strategic value. The four models are tested with data collected from IT managers. The empirical analysis illustrates the insights that can be gained by drawing on the relative strengths of reductionistic and holistic explanations of IT strategic value.

CONCEPTS OF CAPABILITY AND OVERLOOKED APPLICATIONS

We read with interest the recent paper by Ruger on conceptualizing and operationalizing health capability. She stated that ‘‘No work to date has developed a conceptual model or health capability profile leading to methods for addressing health capability deprivations,’’ and then goes on to develop such a model and profile. We agree that literature in this area is limited but draw readers’ attention to a number of articles from the health economics discipline that explore both theoretical issues and applications of the approach. Notably, although these articles are written specifically about operationalizing the approach in health economics as a means of generating new outcome measures for evaluating interventions (be they health technology, public health, or social care inventions), they do not focus on health capability per se, but on capability in its broader context, of which health is just one component. The multidimensional nature of the capability approach is one of the major benefits of the concept. To reduce it to a single dimension does not advance the current approach; it assumes that all that is important is health. However, in the context of people’s lives there will be other choices with which they are faced. The health capability profile that is presented is extremely comprehensive, but possibly to the point of being impractical. It appears to include nearly every health measure and health influence imaginable (thereby conflating capability with influences on capability), with Ruger giving little justification for her particular choice of measures and instruments. A large amount of data, although informative, can be unmanageable in any practical context; and while there have been improvements in the ease and usefulness of self-administered questions, lengthy questionnaires often suffer from low response rates (even the Short-Form 36 has been reduced to the Short-Form 12 and Short-Form 8). Sen strongly advocates a participatory approach in developing capability sets (profiles), such that the capabilities are both person and culture specific. Our previous research has developed methodology to reduce and refine a lengthy questionnaire, and our other work in this area has employed qualitative techniques to generate attributes of capability from the general public. Ruger hopes that her ‘‘health capability profile will help medical and public health researchers and practitioners evaluate the costs and effectiveness of medical interventions and behaviour approaches that might foster health capability.’’ We share similar ideals but have wider expectations of the concept of capability, and we are also somewhat more advanced in operationalizing it. j

A holistic approach for the cognitive control of production systems

Increasing dynamics and a turbulent environment force industrial enterprises to ensure a highly efficient production. The field of production planning and control (PPC) and the sustainable optimization of its methods are hereby of utmost importance. This paper introduces a concept for a cognitive production planning and control system, in which so-called smart products store knowledge about the production process and its current state. The RFID (radio frequency identification) technology presents a promising approach to realize those smart products, to enhance the information management on the shop floor and to offer a precise image of individual product states in the production process. The knowledge on production sequences is represented in a graph-based model. The developed concept represents the executable production of every single resource in capability profiles that are used for the allocation of production steps to resources. Material transports are realized by an anticipatory transport control, which updates its model parameters autonomously. During runtime, the product-specific operation times are measured and stored on the smart product, which is subsequently used to update the overall planning data. Thus, the introduced production planning and control system is able to react to unforeseen events (e.g. missing material, insufficient product quality) and autonomously adapts the planning data to the actual elapsed values of the real production. First experiments showed promising results for the approach to provide and process information directly on the shop floor: the idleness of resources due to errors was reduced by 41% from 19.4% to 8.0% during a 3 h test run. The waiting time of resources caused by missing material can be reduced in specific cases by 17.7%.

A mathematical model of neuromuscular adaptation to resistance training and its application in a computer simulation of accommodating loads

A large corpus of data obtained by means of empirical study of neuromuscular adaptation is currently of limited use to athletes and their coaches. One of the reasons lies in the unclear direct practical utility of many individual trials. This paper introduces a mathematical model of adaptation to resistance training, which derives its elements from physiological fundamentals on the one side, and empirical findings on the other. The key element of the proposed model is what is here termed the athlete's capability profile. This is a generalization of length and velocity dependent force production characteristics of individual muscles, to an exercise with arbitrary biomechanics. The capability profile, a two-dimensional function over the capability plane, plays the central role in the proposed model of the training-adaptation feedback loop. Together with a dynamic model of resistance the capability profile is used in the model's predictive stage when exercise performance is simulated using a numerical approximation of differential equations of motion. Simulation results are used to infer the adaptational stimulus, which manifests itself through a fed back modification of the capability profile. It is shown how empirical evidence of exercise specificity can be formulated mathematically and integrated in this framework. A detailed description of the proposed model is followed by examples of its application-new insights into the effects of accommodating loading for powerlifting are demonstrated. This is followed by a discussion of the limitations of the proposed model and an overview of avenues for future work.

Trust-based exchange of services to motivate cooperation in P2P networks

In this paper we propose a trust-based exchange framework to motivate cooperation among peers of different consumption, contribution and service evaluation profiles. Our framework consists of distributed resource allocation and server selection policies based on local reputation vectors. We present how proposed policies outperform previous work and lead to the autonomic formation of coalitions between peers who mutually profit by exchanging their services. In this way the utilities of all peers progressively improve without pre-existing knowledge of one another’s service evaluation and capability profiles. Peers’ coalitions are dynamically reformatted, adapting to network changes, e.g., when new peers enter the system or peers vary their profiles. Only misbehaving (non contributive) peers cannot benefit by our framework, which efficiently blocks misbehavior.

Practices and Techniques for Engineering Process Capability Models


 
 
 Software Process Improvement, based on a Maturity Level or a Process Capability Profile, from a Capability Maturity Model or an ISO/IEC 15504-based model, is well established in the software industry as a successful practical means for improving software intensive organizations. In consequence there is an opportunity to understand how these models have been developed and consolidate this knowledge to support the development of new models by a broader community including the industry. This article introduces practices and techniques of a Method Framework for Engineering Process Capability Models as an element of a methodology on a Process Capability Profile to drive Process Improvement. This method framework is based on previous experiences to develop different process capability models. Its current version is composed of sequential practices, customization rules, guidelines for using the framework, a repository for examples of utilization and another repository for examples of techniques. This method framework is part of a methodology. An initial validation indicates a first confidence that this method framework is a useful proposal for developing methods and processes for engineering process capability models.
 
 

A method to define process capability profiles from the characteristics of very small software enterprises


 
 
 This work presents a method for the definition of process capability profiles lined up with the specific business model of small software companies. The developed method is made up of a process, artifacts and guides that assist to obtain process profiles, considering the specific characteristics (business model, enterprise growth stage and value discipline) of each small software company. Therefore, the application of the method allows selecting a set of adjusted processes and lined up with the business model offering more objective improvement actions to a small software company. Partial results obtained during a pilot evaluation of the method in a small software company in Florianópolis/SC are also presented.
 Keywords: process capability profile, software process improvement, capability model, business model, small business, very small enterprises.
 
 

Health Capability: Conceptualization and Operationalization

Current theoretical approaches to bioethics and public health ethics propose varied justifications as the basis for health care and public health, yet none captures a fundamental reality: people seek good health and the ability to pursue it. Existing models do not effectively address these twin goals. The approach I espouse captures both of these orientations through a concept here called health capability. Conceptually, health capability illuminates the conditions that affect health and one's ability to make health choices. By respecting the health consequences individuals face and their health agency, health capability offers promise for finding a balance between paternalism and autonomy. I offer a conceptual model of health capability and present a health capability profile to identify and address health capability gaps.

Endoscopy Nurse as a Patient Care Coordinator

Several methods are used to describe and evaluate competence profiles of registered nurses. A clinical ladder program based on P. Benner's (1984; P. Benner et al., 1996) competency framework has been used for 20 years in a Finnish university hospital; to ensure the nurses' strategic competencies and capability profiles, the Nurse Competence Scale (NCS) was developed for the self-assessment and the superiors' review purposes (R. Meretoja, H. Isoaho, & H. Leino-Kilpi, 2004; R. Meretoja, H. Leino-Kilpi, & A. M. Kaira, 2004). In the gastroenterological endoscopy unit, competent nurses' work role has been expanded to the proficient level. These nurses are working as patient care coordinators in multiprofessional groups. This expanded work role requires mastery of nursing care for the gastroenterological patients and also familiarity of the endoscopy processes and the clinical pathways. These endoscopy nurse coordinators' most important work role is the effective management of situations, and they are also remarkable resources as preceptors and mentors to less experienced nurses and nursing students. This article describes endoscopy nurse coordinators' expanded work role and competence profile in the frame of the clinical ladder program.

Machine tool capability profile for intelligent process planning

An optimized metal cutting process plan can only be developed with an accurate capability profile of a machine tool. Based on the information within this profile, a manufacturing decision making process can ascertain the time and production cost of parts. In this paper, a standardized methodology for modelling manufacturing resources is realized to enable accurate representation of actual resources and custom constraints. An example case study demonstrates the application of the machine tool capability profile through the selection of available cutting tools rather than using nominal cutting tools.

Discovering and integrating distributed manufacturing services with semantic manufacturing capability profiles

Integrating distributed manufacturing systems is a longstanding dream of industrial engineers. The advent of internet technologies has provided opportunities to fulfill this dream, and has presented new challenges to overcome. Since most current internet technologies (e.g. SOA, web service) originated in business applications, it is difficult to apply them directly to manufacturing systems. The difficulties stem particularly from differences in meaning and usage of manufacturing terms and an inability to express semantic information about manufacturing services. The present paper aims to extend the universal description, discovery, and integration (UDDI) registry specification to include semantic descriptions about manufacturing services and to support reasoning of those descriptions for service discovery. Specifically, we provide OWL-based definitions for manufacturing service capability profiles and a description logic (DL)-based reasoning procedure for matching queries to service descriptions. An illustrative process is presented with a prototype implementation for a discrete part manufacturing case.

Ranking profiles of capability sets

In this paper, we present an innovative approach for ranking profiles of capability sets on the basis of equity. An interesting way of capturing the notion of equity is to take into account the extent to which each of the different functioning vectors is shared by the population under consideration (of size n). This is done by defining the ‘common capability sets’ enjoyed by k individuals as the set of functioning vectors simultaneously available to at least k individuals (1 ≤ k ≤ n). These sets are closely related to the original capability sets and have some interesting properties that are examined throughout the paper. We define and axiomatically characterize a capability profile ranking that lexicographically compares the different common capability sets.

Capability perspective of business model innovation: analysis in the software industry

Prior research suggests that competitive advantages in environmental flux rely on a firm's capacity for innovation and adaptation. Specialisation in core competencies has increased the importance of developing business model-specific capabilities in technology-intensive industries like the software business. In addition to developing required capabilities internally, capabilities increasingly are being obtained beyond company boundaries from a network of business partners. In this study, we analyse capabilities in conjunction with four basic types of business model, using two dimensions drawn from the prior literature. These two dimensions are (1) degree of involvement in customer relationships and (2) level of homogeneity in offerings. Our findings indicate that different types of business model vary significantly in their emphasis on internally-developed versus externally-obtained capabilities. These findings pinpoint the essential capability profiles for business model innovation.

Channel Collaboration, Market Orientation and Performance Advantages: Discovering Developed and Emerging Markets

Channel collaboration has occupied an increasingly prominent role in contemporary business strategy, and has been considered a key driver for providing value for the partnering firms involved. Drawing on the resource based theory of the firm, the present study aims to explore the effects of collaborative capability and market orientation on firms' performance advantages in the context of marketing channels. We also investigate whether the firms in developed and emerging markets significantly differ in their capability profiles. The data consists of 545 responses to a survey of small, medium-sized and large companies representing the grocery goods sector (manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers) in nine countries. In line with the theory, channel collaboration enhances positional and performance advantages of firms, and this collaboration is shaped by the type of economy adopted.

Ergonomics diagnosis components in rehabilitation: statistical evaluation of an assessment instrument

The current paper examines an assessment instrument used for combined medical and occupational rehabilitation (MOR) in a group of German hospitals. Patients with a history of musculo-skeletal disease make up a significant proportion of those undergoing rehabilitation. Scale and factor structures, discriminant factors and clustering procedures used in the Bavaria rehabilitation patient assessment method (BRPAM) are investigated in a cross-sectional study involving a sample of 800 patients. Although the results reveal good correlation between differences in the job demand/patient capability profiles and the typical stresses to which the relevant occupation is exposed, analyses also indicate that several factors and items are unstable. According to subjective assessment by the patients, the therapeutic objectives are fully attained in some 80% of cases. Discrepancies between job demands and patient capability revealed by the BRPAM yield pointers to choice of therapy and its chances of success, but these need to be examined in greater detail in long-term studies.

Feasible Region of Design Parameters for Water Cooled Thorium Breeder Reactor

The performances of a light water cooled thorium breeder reactor have been investigated. A feasible region of fresh fuel enrichment and moderator to fuel ratio (MFR) is found to satisfy the constrains of criticality, breeding, and negative void coefficient for several burnups of discharged fuel. The equilibrium fuel cycle burnup calculation has been performed which is coupled with the cell calculation. The MFR is changed to investigate its effect to the breeding capability and void reactivity coefficient profile for different average discharged burnups. For moderated cases, the conversion ratio (CR) decreases with increasing burnup and MFR. The ratio of fissile inventory in equilibrium core to the initial fissile loading (FIR) has the maximum value at certain burnups depending on the MFR and its value increases with the decreasing MFR. Considering to the breeding capability of the reactor, for burnups of equal to 30 GWd/t or higher, the MFR ≤ 0.3 is needed. For the larger MFR and lower burnups, the void reactivity coefficient becomes more negative with an increasing void fraction. The most negative value of the void reactivity coefficient is obtained at MFR = 0:3.

System and method for enhancing speech intelligibility for the hearing impaired

A system and method of using a combination of audio signal modification technologies integrated with hearing capability profiles, modern computer vision, speech recognition, and expert systems for use by a hearing impaired individual to improve speech intelligibility.

FORCES AND TEMPERATURES IN HARD TURNING

In precision machining, due to the recent developments in cutting tools, machine tool structural rigidity and improved CNC controllers, hard turning is an emerging process as an alternative to some of the grinding processes by providing reductions in costs and cycle-times. In industrial environments, hard turning is established for geometry features of parts with low to medium requirements on part quality. Better understanding of cutting forces, stresses and temperature fields, temperature gradients created during the machining are very critical for achieving highest quality products and high productivity in feasible cycle times. To enlarge the capability profile of the hard turning process, this paper introduces prediction models of mechanical and thermal loads during turning of 51CrV4 with hardness of 68 HRC by a CBN tool. The shear flow stress, shear and friction angles are determined from the orthogonal cutting tests. Cutting force coefficients are determined from orthogonal to oblique transformations. Cutting forces, temperature field for the chip and tool are predicted and compared with experimental measurements. The experimental temperature measurements are conducted by the advanced hardware device FIRE-1 (Fiberoptic Ratio Pyrometer).