Centralized Management Approach Research Articles

The Impact of Leadership and Management on the Implementation of Electronic Health Record Systems in the Primary Healthcare Centers.

In the last three decades, Electronic Health Records Systems (EHRSs) have become one of the top priorities of policymakers globally. Nowadays, EHRS reform is fast becoming a priority in developed countries. The introduction of EHRSs in Saudi healthcare organizations is considered one of the highest priorities of policymakers. Saudi Arabian e-health strategy pays reasonable attention to the EHRS implementation project. According to Saudi Vision 2030, the e-health transformation will be on top of IT projects in the country. However, an estimated 50% of EHRS implementations have failed. Project leadership and type of project management have been found to be crucial components of effective EHRS implementation. To evaluate the role of centralized project management (CPM) in the implementation of large-scale EHRSs in Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) in Saudi Arabia (SA). A sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach involving a survey and semi-structured qualitative interview methods were utilized. A total of 39 (75%) out of 53 policymakers at the Saudi Ministry of Health completed the survey, and 14 project team members were interviewed. Findings from both illustrated that adopting centralized project management approaches to implementation was beneficial in facilitating large-scale EHRS implementation and helped to overcome barriers that may have otherwise led to the failure of the project. EHRS interoperability and software selection were the factors that CPM influenced most positively.

Dynamic Optimization of a Supply Chain Operation Model with Multiple Products

Determination of the optimal operational policy for an automotive supply chain is explored under a centralized management approach using dynamic programming. A deterministic optimal control model is proposed to meet multi-product demand over a period while minimizing a cost performance index for a five-echelon network. The production-inventory levels are the state variables and the raw material acquisition rates are the control variables to be decided in the problem. The novelties include parts mixing operations, assembly requirements, and a push–pull chain operation strategy. The continuous model is solved using Iterative Dynamic Programming, an algorithm with successful applications in chemical engineering problems. Its implementation here is the first in supply chain (SC) management models. The results demonstrate that the proposal is suitable to represent the dynamic behavior of the SC and provides useful information to outline a cooperative decision-making process. Managerial insights are derived to improve the resilience and efficiency of the chain.

Barriers to successful change management

Change management plays a crucial role in an organisation’s ability to adapt and thrive in today’s ever-evolving and fast-changing technologically enabled business landscape. Many organisations continue to struggle with effective change management, resulting in failed projects and missed opportunities for growth and development. This paper analyses the reasons why organisations frequently falter in change management efforts and provides insights into overcoming these barriers. The paper identifies a host of significant barriers to effective and successful change management. Each barrier is discussed in detail, explaining the negative effect it can have on change initiatives. Among these barriers are the lack of change management role accountability, a culture where change management is not embraced at all levels, a lack of change champions and leadership support, resistance to change, limited employee involvement, inadequate and poorly designed communications and a failure to properly integrate change management with other complementary approaches. The paper provides practical recommendations to overcome these barriers. It emphasises the crucial role of leadership in championing the change, communicating the vision and actively involving employees in the change process. It underscores the importance of a well-crafted, clear and consistent communication that can help build trust, ensure buy-in and reduce resistance. The paper also highlights the need for robust integration of change management with other complementary approaches. Furthermore, the paper underscores the significance of a centralised change management approach, incorporating tools, best practices and standardised change management practices, and setting realistic expectations to sustain change efforts over time. It stresses the need for organisations to provide the necessary resources, authority and support to staff to effectively fulfil their change management roles. In conclusion, this paper provides insights into overcoming the main barriers to successful change implementation. By implementing the suggested strategies, organisations can enhance their change management capabilities and increase their adaptability, thereby ensuring long-term success in a rapidly changing business landscape.

School principals’ practices and their facing barriers to sustainable development in Turkish K12 schools

ABSTRACT This research aimed to determine school principals’ practices and barriers to sustainable development in Turkish K-12 schools governed by centralized management. The present research focused on sustainable school buildings (energy saving, water saving, natural school gardens), clean drinking water, healthy nutrition, recycling, centralized management system, local governments, and the education of students and families for sustainable development. The research was designed using a case study approach. The semi-structured interview technique was used. The data were analyzed deductively according to literature and research questions. The results indicated leadership skills especially distributed and transformational leadership skills for sustainable development, the collaboration of universities, colleagues, and municipalities, the education of the school public, the necessity of rewards and accreditation systems, and the importance of methods for the education of students. Also, this research emphasizes clean drinking water in low socioeconomic areas, the need for healthy nutrition, the climate condition of the region and the need for a school budget under a centralized management approach.

Pluralizing the urban waste economy: insights from community-based enterprises in Ahmedabad (India) and Kampala (Uganda)

The delivery of urban basic infrastructure services is often guided by the modern infrastructure ideal, which aims for technical innovation, economic efficiency and uniformity through long-term, centralized management approaches. In rapidly growing urban centres of the global South, however, heterogeneous infrastructure configurations have long involved multiple systems in varying degrees of coexistence. This paper explores how community-based enterprises – organizations that aim not to turn a profit but rather to generate human well-being – contribute to, complement or conflict with wider municipal solid waste management strategies. It does so through two case studies, focused on Luchacos, a local enterprise turning waste into briquettes in an informal settlement of Kampala, Uganda; and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a cooperative of waste pickers in Ahmedabad, India. Drawing on empirical data and policy analysis, the research finds that, given the necessary state support, community-based enterprises can contribute to a range of sustainability and development objectives.

Conservation of Rain Water in Urban Area Using Ground Water Recharge

Abstract: Water scarcity is serious problem throughout the world for both urban & rural community. As the world population increases, the demand increases for quality drinking water. Urbanization, industrial development & increase in agricultural field & production has resulted in overexploitation of groundwater & surface water resources and resultant deterioration in water quality. The conventional water sources namely well, river and reservoirs, etc. are inadequate to fulfill water demand due to unbalanced rainfall. . Surface andgroundwater resources are being utilized faster than they can be recharged. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is an option that has been adopted in many areas of the world where conventional water supply systems have failed to meet people’s needs.It is a technique that has been used since antiquity. It is an environmentally sound solution to address issues brought forth by large projects utilizing centralized water management approaches. Water harvesting is the activity of direct collection of rainwater, which can be stored for direct use or can be recharged into the groundwater. Water harvesting is the collection of runoff for productive purposes. According to Kim et al. (2005), rainwater harvesting may be one of the best methods available to recovering the natural hydrologic cycle and enabling urban development to become sustainable. The harvesting of rainwater has the potential to assist in alleviating pressures on current water supplies and storm water drainage systems. Rainwater collection has the potential to impact many people in the world. As water harvesting is an ancient tradition and has been used for millennia in most dry lands of the world, many different techniques have been developed the aim of the present study is to use rainwater andthus taking close to the concept of nature conservation. In this study, the rain water harvesting (RWH) system is analyzed as an alternative source of water in Gwalior Town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India and the results were elated. By our calculation we have come to the conclusion that 108 days water can be stored for the entire city by the means of rain water harvesting method and that too only if we assume that only 70% of the water is being stored and remaining 30% of the water is getting wasted in the form of runoff. Even though, after this we are able to get 108 days of water for the entire city.

Pricing and Simulating Energy Transactions in Energy Communities

Extensive literature is available for modeling and simulating local electricity markets, often called P2P electricity markets, and for pricing local energy transactions in energy communities. Market models and pricing mechanisms provide simulation tools to better understand how these new markets behave, helping to design their main rules for real applications, and assessing the financial compensations of the internal energy transactions. As such, pricing mechanisms are often needed in energy management systems when centralized management approaches are preferred to market-based ones. First, this paper highlights the links between local electricity markets, pricing mechanisms for local electricity transactions, and other approaches to sharing the collective benefits of participating in transactive energy communities. Then, a standard nomenclature is defined to review some of the main pricing mechanisms for local energy transactions, an innovative pricing mechanism based on the economic principles of a post-delivery pool market is proposed, and other relevant approaches for local electricity market simulation such as Nash equilibrium or agent-based simulation are also revisited. The revision was based on systematic searches in common research databases and on the authors’ experience in European and national projects, including local industrial applications for the past five years. A qualitative assessment of the reviewed methods is also provided, and the research challenges are highlighted. This review is intended to serve as a practical guide to pricing mechanisms and market simulation procedures for practical designs of internal financial compensation to share the collective benefits of energy communities.

Power control management system model using wireless sensor network

Several researchers would study the development of controlling and centralized management approaches in response to improvements in wireless communication, microsystems, microcontrollers, deeply integrated computers, deeply integrated devices, and the expanding demand for more productive controlled electric equipment. The objective is to develop a computerized device that employs Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and Dynamic Power Management (DPM) to supervise and troubleshoot the electrical system. The Intelligent Sensor Modules (ISM) and isolated data automation systems, that are in charge of Signal Detection, Computing, and Transmission, have been deployed on two network architectures (SDCT). The data collection devices must be accepted by the Remote Servers (RS) design, and the monitoring inverter serves as the wired connection's gateway. A DPM approach is used by the sensor networks to extend the WSN's lifespan. By simply extending the sleep duration, which could be modified according to the application operating on the sensor network, the life of the node can be easily increased.

Toward Zero-Touch Management and Orchestration of Massive Deployment of Network Slices in 6G

6G systems are expected to serve a massive number of extremely heterogeneous network slices that cross multiple technological domains (i.e., RAN, edge, cloud, and core), posing significant challenges to classical centralized management and orchestration approaches in terms of scalability and sustainability. Within this context, a distributed and intelligent management and orchestration system is mandatory. This article proposes a novel framework featuring a distributed and AI-driven management and orchestration system for massive deployment of network slices in 6G. The proposed framework is compliant with both ETSI standards focusing on autonomous and intelligent network management and orchestration, that is, Zero touch Service Management (ZSM) and Experimental Networked Intelligent (ENI), leveraging their visions to enable autonomous as well as scalable management and orchestration of network slices and their dedicated resources.

Establishing a Centralized Logistical Triage Platform to facilitate Supply Chain Optimization for Critical Resources during COVID-19 in a Developing Country

Problem: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant resource deficiencies, especially with regards to basic facilities required for the safety of Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Resource deficiency can be attributed both to inadequate production and to misdirected distribution due to deficits in the global supply chain, particularly in a time-sensitive situation like this. Low-Middle Income Countries (LMICs) face the added burden of economic constraints and underdeveloped health-care infrastructure. Lack of a centralized approach, ineffective rapid communication (especially amongst private and public entities), stockpiling and inefficient resource allocation further exacerbate this underlying issue.Approach: Project Alloy has worked on building a platform for “Logistical Triage” to strengthen the coordination of resource networks in crisis situations. We aim to facilitate supply chain optimization by tackling inequitable resource distribution through a centralized management approach. Through our portal, healthcare organizations in need of personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other key resources would be connected to non-governmental organizations, government agencies and manufacturers to enable time-sensitive and need-based optimization of resource allocation and distribution. Outcomes: We hope to facilitate near-real time tracking of resource consumption, to guide the efforts of rapidly emerging “pop-up” suppliers and manufacturers. This would ultimately feed into three key outcomes: a) to ensure immediate continuity of supplies to HCPs in the frontline against COVID-19; b) to track and preempt the trajectory of resource deficiencies and demands in order to mitigate the impact of the rapidly rising incidence of COVID-19 cases; and c) to establish a centralized network for healthcare specific e-commerce infrastructure in low-middle income countries to facilitate future crisis management. Future Steps: We plan to expand iteratively, to include e-commerce technology to build our supplier dashboard and to develop a crisis specific e-commerce marketplace for healthcare resources.

Complex dual-tree wavelet transform and unified power management based control architecture for hybrid wind power system

This study proposes a complex dual-tree wavelet transform (CDTWT) based control technique for a combined sensitive load, battery, and hybrid wind power system (HWPS) to improve the power quality (PQ). To make the system hybrid both DC-grid and AC-grid are connected through two parallel inverters and to circumvent the sudden power demand, it is connected to the main grid. The CDTWT based control technique easily decomposes the non-linear load current into different frequency levels and extracts the fundamental line frequency component for the computation of the actual active current component. In addition to that, to improve the power reliability (PR) and generate the desired current signals, a novel centralized control and power management (CCPM) approach is proposed. The generated reference current is used to coordinate both of the parallel inverters for offering synchronize power flow, regulate the voltage and frequency and offer regardless of switching operation, at both grid supporting and islanding conditions. The MATLAB/Simulink software is used to develop and test the proposed HWPS at different working modes as the failure of one inverter and the sudden addition of two wind turbines at grid-supporting mode and to show battery functionalities at islanding modes of operation. To justify the necessity of the proposed controller, the total harmonic distortion (THD), stability, and advancement of CDTWT results are also presented at different operating modes. From the test results, it is found that with the presence of 20.06% non-linear load current, the overall improvement percentage of inverter and grid current is 96%-97% and 99% respectively. In addition to that, the proposed technique takes only 0.04 s-0.05 s transition time. The above percentages are well within the prescribed limit of IEEE-1541 and IEEE 1547–2018 and are suggested for real-time complex microgrid operation.

Fully distributed energy management in smart grids based on diffusion strategy

High penetration of distributed energy resources will bring extreme challenges to the existing centralized energy management approach as the system becomes much more decentralized than before. To address this issue, this paper proposes a fully distributed algorithm based on diffusion strategy to solve the optimal energy management. First, the optimal resource management is modelled as a social welfare maximization problem with considering the generation cost, users’ utility and network power losses. Then, a fully distributed algorithm is developed based on the diffusion strategy. By introducing a diffusion term, the information is diffused more thoroughly in the network. Moreover, theoretical analysis is present to show the impact of the control gain on the algorithm’s stability using eigenvalue perturbation theory. Compared with consensus strategy-based algorithm, the proposed control scheme is superior in terms of both stability and convergence speed. Finally, several simulation studies are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Blockchain Based Security Solution for Medical Data

Existing health organizations maintain their patients and medical data using centralised management approach. This system is more vulnerable to data breaches which leads to security threats and patients don’t have control over their data. According to German cybersecurity company Greenbone Networks, the patient records, 121 millions of medical images and scans from India has been leaked which includes details such as the name of the patient, their date of birth, the national ID, name of the medical institution, their medical history, physician names and other details. According to poneman cost of data breach study, the cost of the data breach for healthcare organizations approximated to be $380 per record. According to 2016 Breach Barometer Report, 27,314,647 patient records were affected. The patient don’t have control over their data and data can be misused. Hyperledger fabric framework based Blockchain technology is most desirable solution to prevent data manipulation and data theft .It also facilitates patient to have control over their data. Hyperledger fabric is a permissioned distributed ledger framework and provide high degrees of confidentiality, flexibility, and scalability.

Latency and Lifetime Enhancements in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: A Q-Learning Approach for Graph Routing

Industrial wireless sensor networks usually have a centralized management approach, where a device known as network manager is responsible for the overall configuration, definition of routes, and allocation of communication resources. Graph routing is used to increase the reliability of communication through path redundancy. Some of the state-of-the-art graph-routing algorithms use weighted cost equations to define preferences on how the routes are constructed. The characteristics and requirements of these networks complicate to find a proper set of weight values to enhance network performance. Reinforcement learning can be useful to adjust these weights according to the current operating conditions of the network. In this article, we present the Q-learning reliable routing with a weighting agent approach, where an agent adjusts the weights of a state-of-the-art graph-routing algorithm. The states of the agent represent sets of weights, and the actions change the weights during network operation. Rewards are given to the agent when the average network latency decreases or the expected network lifetime increases. Simulations were conducted on a WirelessHART simulator considering industrial monitoring applications with random topologies. Results show, in most cases, a reduction of the average network latency while the expected network lifetime and the communication reliability are at least as good as what is obtained by the state-of-the-art graph-routing algorithms.

Blockchain-Based Internet of Vehicles: Distributed Network Architecture and Performance Analysis

The rapid growth of Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has brought huge challenges for large data storage, intelligent management, and information security for the entire system. The traditional centralized management approach for IoV faces the difficulty in dealing with real-time response. The blockchain, as an effective technology for decentralized distributed storage and security management, has already showed great advantages in its application of Bitcoin. In this paper, we investigate how the blockchain technology could be extended to the application of vehicle networking, especially with the consideration of the distributed and secure storage of big data. We define several types of nodes such as vehicle and roadside for vehicle networks and form several sub-blockchain networks. In this paper, we present a model of the outward transmission of vehicle blockchain data, and then give detail theoretical analysis and numerical results. This paper has shown the potential to guide the application of blockchain for future vehicle networking.

EV Charging Stations and RES-Based DG: a Centralized Approach for Smart Integration in Active Distribution Grids

Renewable Energy Sources based (RES-based) Dispersed Generation (DG) and Electrical Vehicles (EVs) charging systems diffusion is in progress in many Countries around the word. They have huge effects on the distribution grids planning and operation, particularly on MV and LV distribution grids. Many studies on their impact on the power systems are ongoing, proposing different approaches of managing. The present work deals with a real application case of integration of EVs charging stations with ES-based DG. The final task of the integration is to be able to assure the maximum utilization of the distribution grid to which both are connected, without any upgrading action, and in accordance with Distribution System Operators (DSOs) needs. The application of the proposed approach is related to an existent distribution system, owned by e-distribuzione, the leading DSO in Italy. Diverse types of EVs supplying stations, with diverse diffusion scenarios, have been assumed for the case study; various Optimal Power Flow (OPF) models, based on diverse objective functions, reflecting DSO necessities, have been applied and tried. The obtained results demonstrate that a centralized management approach by the DSO, could assure the respect of operation limits of the system in the actual asset, delaying or avoiding upgrading engagements and charges.

Development of Multidisciplinary Anticoagulation Management Guidelines for Patients Receiving Durable Mechanical Circulatory Support.

Patients receiving durable mechanical circulatory support (MCS) require life-long anticoagulation with a vitamin K antagonist (VKA). Due to alternations in hemostasis, concomitant therapy with antiplatelet agents and critical illness, they are at increased risk of thromboembolic and bleeding complications compared with the general population managed on VKAs. To prevent thrombotic events, current guidelines recommend that patients with MCS receive long-term anticoagulation with a VKA to maintain a target international normalized ratio (INR) as specified by device manufacturers, but limited data exist regarding specific routine management of anticoagulation therapy and its potential complications. To optimize anticoagulation management and minimize risk in these patients, we have centralized anticoagulation management in a collaborative approach between the inpatient hemostatic and antithrombotic (HAT) stewardship service and between ambulatory anticoagulation management service (AMS) and the advanced heart disease team. Patients are followed by these three services beginning when the device is implanted and extending the duration that patients have the device. The teams include multiple clinicians from cardiac surgery, cardiology, hematology, pharmacy, nursing, case management, nutrition, and psychiatry, therefore, in order to standardize practice among clinicians without compromising patient centered decision making, we assembled an interdisciplinary team to create multiple treatment guidelines. In addition to a centralized and collaborative approach, our guidelines ensure seamless transitions of care between the inpatient and outpatient settings. We believe our approach has demontrated a positive improvement in the care of these challenging patients. In this article, we present our comprehensive centralized anticoagulation management approach for patients with left ventricular assist systems (LVAS).

CityMii - An integration and interoperable middleware to manage a Smart City

Modern cities are supported by multiple heterogeneous IT systems deployed and managed by distinct agents. In general, those systems use old, dependent and non-standardized technologies, which make them legacy and incompatible systems. As smart cities are moving toward a fully centralized management approach, the lack of integration among systems raises several problems. Since they are independent, it is not easy to correlate information from different systems and put it together to work in order to achieve application goals.The collaboration among different systems enables an agent to offer new functionalities (services or just information about the city) that cannot be provided by any of these systems working as individual entities. The goal of this paper is to propose an integration middleware to support the management of Smart Cities in a dynamic, transparent and scalable way. The proposed middleware intends to support interoperability among different systems operating in a city.

PowerTrader: Enforcing Autonomous Power Management for Future Large-Scale Many-Core Processors

Existing power management approaches for modern many-core processors resort to “centralized” design concept, aiming to optimize chip performance under fixed power budget. Unfortunately, the centralized power management approach, which usually relies on a dedicated on-chip power manager, faces various limitations such as poor scalability and high implementation overhead, and hence cannot be deployed in future large-scale manycores. This article proposes PowerTrader , an autonomous power management scheme. PowerTrader endows each core with self autonomy to issue the power control at any time to harvest the desirable power quota through negotiating with vicinity cores. It does not incur the overheads introduced by power allocation and statistics collection that are inevitable in centralized approaches, meanwhile chip power consumption could be well kept beneath the preset power budget. This article also elaborates on the key design tradeoff in autonomous power management (i.e., Mean-Time-to-Stable versus application power efficiency), and provides thorough design space exploration to justify the efficacy of the proposed approach. Experimental results show that PowerTrader achieves substantial improvements in both performance and power, and exhibits superior scalability compared with the state-of-the-arts.

An evolutionary approach for supply chain management

This paper aims to provide a simple pragmatic approach for supply chain management, departing from the current mainstream chase on supply chain integration. We first summarise two dominant but opposite approaches, the decentralised traditional approach and the centralised supply chain management approach, each of which has its distinct strengths and obvious weaknesses. To take advantage of their strengths and overcome their weaknesses, an evolutionary approach is laid out by applying key insights of the theory of evolution - self-interest, adaptation, and natural cooperation, and of supply chain management - demand and supply evolution. We propose an evolutionary approach that integrates four rudimentary advantages: the organisation fulfils its own interest, the organisation is better adapted to its local environment, natural cooperation is built on direct reciprocity, and demand and supply evolution provides a differential preservation of interrelations between suppliers and buyers. A two-stage newsvendor game illustrates its practical implication, which confirms the evolutionary approach is a legitimate alternative to the current systems integration approach for supply chain management.