Holistic Processes Research Articles

Processes of auditability in sustainability assurance – the case of materiality construction

This study examines how financial audit-styled concepts such as materiality are transferred to non-financial audit arenas. Drawing on a case study of assurors working within a Big 4 professional services firm, we uncover a number of interrelated features of the materiality determination and assessment process within sustainability assurance (assurance on sustainability reports). We illustrate how assuror flexibility, underpinned by assuror intuition, is central to uncovering assurance technologies deemed capable of addressing the materiality of ambiguous sustainability data. Assurors with no financial audit background retrospectively rationalise their intuition using the assumed authority of structured financial audit methodologies. This facilitates the tentative translation of financial audit knowledge to the sustainability assurance domain. Collaborative, holistic decision-making processes inform the assurors’ continual construction of materiality and are characterised by alliances of (accountant and non-accountant) ‘expert’ assurors merging formal and tacit knowledge. These alliances seek social cohesion within sustainability assurance teams in order to establish a social consensus among assurors around the materiality determination and assessment process. Our analysis develops and extends Power’s theorisation of how new areas are made auditable and advances our understanding of the more practical aspects of non-financial assurance services offered by Big 4 professional services firms.

INDO-NORDEN – a consortium for developing holistic processes and land use practices for clean energy

Intensive forest harvesting techniques are being used in Finland to enhance the share of bioenergy. However, there are no clear indications as to how environmentally safe are these practices. We address this issue in the INDO-NORDEN project through field studies addressing the climate impacts on the ecosystem carbon balance. Also, we will address several major issues relevant to Nordic agriculture under changing climatic conditions. INDO-NORDEN plans to develop biofuel production processes adopted in Estonia and India for enhancing biofuel yields. The effects of biomass raw material on ash characteristics, fine particle and gas emissions in combustion plants will be evaluated.

Modeling of interdependencies between products, processes and resources to support the evolution of mechatronic systems

Due to different trends in manufacturing, existing mechatronic systems, such as automated manufacturing machines, are obliged to evolve in order to cope with a quickly changing environment. The evolution of mechatronic systems is achieved by adaptation processes, where changes in the physical structure of a system and/or its automation software are performed. An important phase of an adaptation process is the modeling and analysis of existing interdependencies between system elements which serve as a basis for subsequent adaptation phases. However, current modeling approaches mostly focus on single system element types and do not regard the holistic system, i.e., products, processes and resources. Accordingly, in this contribution a concept for modeling interdependencies between products, processes and resources is proposed with the aim of providing a solid data base for the generation of adaption options. The application of the concept is demonstrated by an illustrative example of a pick-and-place unit.

Culture shapes spatial frequency tuning for face identification.

Many studies have revealed cultural differences in the way Easterners and Westerners attend to their visual world. It has been proposed that these cultural differences reflect the utilization of different processes, namely holistic processes by Easterners and analytical processes by Westerners. In the face processing literature, eye movement studies have revealed different fixation patterns for Easterners and Westerners that are congruent with a broader spread of attention by Easterners: compared with Westerners, Easterners tend to fixate more toward the center of the face even if they need the information provided by the eyes and mouth. Although this cultural difference could reflect an impact of culture on the visual mechanisms underlying face processing, this interpretation has been questioned by the finding that Easterners and Westerners do not differ on the location of their initial fixations, that is, those that have been shown as being sufficient for face recognition. Because a broader spread of attention is typically linked with the reduced sensitivity to higher spatial frequency, the present study directly compared the spatial frequency tuning of Easterners (Chinese) and Westerners (Canadians) in 2 face recognition tasks (Experiment 1 and 2), along with their general low-level sensitivity to spatial frequencies (Experiment 3). Consistent with our hypothesis, Chinese participants were tuned toward lower spatial frequencies than Canadians participants during the face recognition tasks, despite comparable low-level contrast sensitivity functions. These results strongly support the hypothesis that culture impacts the nature of the visual information extracted during face recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record

PP032 Holistic Patient Access Processes Of Medical Devices In South Korea

INTRODUCTION:Historically, patient access processes of new and innovative medical devices including in-vitro diagnostics are made in the sequence of regulatory approval, new Health Technology Assessment (nHTA) approval, reimbursement coverage and coding finally reaching the pricing approval stage in South Korea. Although the individual patient access process has its own distinct objective and perspective, there are still opportunities for the authorities or agencies in charge to streamline their processes by working together to promote earlier patient access of new and innovative medical devices to patients without impacting their own decision making.METHODS:This research examined and analyzed the current policies about: patient access processes with a holistic viewpoint, industry-wide survey about patient access practices; case studies of two innovative medical devices for patient access in South Korea and also proposed new or alternative programs which can contribute to patient access harmonization efforts with a holistic approach.RESULTS:Historically, health authorities play defensive strategies by delaying the adoption of new and innovative medical devices and implementing certain periods (that is, 2 to 5 years) for a patient's out-of-pocket payment scheme. It is well illustrated with the statistic that only twenty-nine percent of new and innovative medical technologies which have successfully gone through the nHTA process were determined for reimbursement coverage in the past 7 years.The survey by the medical device industry to determine the patient access lead-time of innovative medical devices with a holistic perspective indicated significantly delayed patient access even considerabley exceeding the legally required decision-making lead time. The in-depth case studies with two innovative devices indicated the disadvantageous patient access processes to the innovator in terms of both final approval timing and the price level.CONCLUSIONS:The concurrent review process for reimbursement coverage decision making for medical procedures, medical devices and reimbursement coverage payment guidelines committed within the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service shall be created. New programs to deal with uncertainty in reimbursement coverage decision making shall be considered such as coverage with evidence development, performance-based risk-sharing arrangement, multi-criteria decision analysis and economic evaluation.

The Influence of MCAT and GPA Preadmission Academic Metrics on Interview Scores

Medical school admissions interviews are used to assess applicants’ nonacademic characteristics as advocated by the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Advancing Holistic Review Initiative. The objective of this study is to determine whether academic metrics continue to significantly influence interviewers’ scores in holistic processes by blinding interviewers to applicants’ undergraduate grade point averages (uGPA) and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). This study examines academic and demographic predictors of interview scores for two applicant cohorts at the University of Michigan Medical School. In 2012, interviewers were provided applicants’ uGPA and MCAT scores; in 2013, these academic metrics were withheld from interviewers’ files. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine the influence of academic and demographic variables on overall cohort interview scores. When interviewers were provided uGPA and MCAT scores, academic metrics explained more variation in interview scores (7.9%) than when interviewers were blinded to these metrics (4.1%). Further analysis showed a statistically significant interaction between cohort and uGPA, indicating that the association between uGPA and interview scores was significantly stronger for the 2012 unblinded cohort compared to the 2013 blinded cohort (β = .573, P < .05). By contrast, MCAT scores had no interactive effects on interviewer scores. While MCAT scores accounted for some variation in interview scores for both cohorts, only access to uGPA significantly influenced interviewers’ scores when looking at interaction effects. Withholding academic metrics from interviewers’ files may promote assessment of nonacademic characteristics independently from academic metrics.

Integrative functional genomic analysis unveils the differing dysregulated metabolic processes across hepatocellular carcinoma stages

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly heterogeneous disease and the development of targeted therapeutics is still at an early stage. The ‘omics’ based genome-wide profiling comprising the transcriptome, miRNome and proteome are highly useful in identifying the deregulated molecular processes involved in hepatocarcinogenesis. One of the end products and processes of the central dogma being the metabolites and metabolic processes mediate the cellular functions. In recent years, metabolomics based investigations have revealed the major deregulated metabolic processes involved in carcinogenesis. However, the integrative analysis of the holistic metabolic processes with genomics is at an early stage. Since the gene-sets are highly useful in assessing the biological processes and pathways, we made an attempt to infer the deregulated cellular metabolic processes involved in HCC by employing metabolism associated gene-set enrichment analysis. Further, the metabolic process enrichment scores were integrated with the transcriptome profiles of HCC. Integrative analysis shows three distinct metabolic deregulations: i) hepatocyte function related molecular processes involving lipid/fatty acid/bile acid synthesis, ii) inflammatory processes with cytokine, sphingolipid & chondriotin sulphate metabolism and iii) enriched nucleotide metabolic process involving purine/pyrimidine & glucose mediated catabolic process, in hepatocarcinogenesis. The three distinct metabolic processes were found to occur both in tumor and liver cancer cell line profiles. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of the metabolic processes along with clinical sample information has identified two major clusters based on AFP (alpha-fetoprotein) and metastasis. The study reveals the three major regulatory processes involved in HCC stages.

Applying Holistic Thinking to the Problem of Determining the Future Availability of Technology

Used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense, the technology readiness level (TRL) has been found to contain a number of deficiencies which reduce its fitness for purpose. This technical note examines the undesirable situation that created the TRL from the traditional and holistic problem-solving processes. The contribution of this technical note to the problem-solving body of knowledge is that the holistic thinking approach could have produced a more useful conceptual tool than the TRL for determining the future availability of technology; a tool that instead of focusing on the early stages of the technology lifecycle focuses on the whole technology lifecycle from conceptualization to obsolescence.

Logical-Semantic Analysis and the Development of L.S. Vygotsky's Ideas About “Units” and “Elements” of Psychological Systems

Based on an analysis of L.S. Vygotsky's concepts of “units” and “elements” of psychological systems, this article highlights five of their attributes. It shows that these attributes are logically symmetrical, since in their wording they can be converted into one another by negation or by replacing some words with their opposites. This suggests that the concepts of the “unit” and “element” of a system are different poles of one theoretical construct of the activity of human psychology. Thus methods for the study of psychological systems by breaking them down into elements or by separating them into units can be seen as complementary. The article describes differences among the concepts of “unit,” “minimal unit,” and “cell” of a psychological system. It reviews several problems that are solvable using the “method of units,” as well as some concepts of the theory of psychological systems that are understood as holistic, conceptual, and active processes and/or results of human interaction with the world. Among the examples of such systems are “systems of psychological functions” (according to Vygotsky), as well as separate activities (according to A.N. Leontiev), human actions and operations (interactions with the world on the level of objects and mental or physical means). The “component” of a psychological system is defined as any “something” that in some sense belongs to or is included in human interaction with the world. A component that belongs to the system is called an “element” of it, but a component that is included in the functioning and development of the system is called a “part” of it. The article presents the mathematical and psychological foundation of these definitions. It identifies and discusses the substantial (independently existing) components of psychological systems and their attributes (properties and conditions). It describes the relationships between them using the bipolar theoretical constructs “part-element” and “substantial-attributive” component of a system.

Regional engagement and spatial modelling for natural resource management planning.

Changing unsustainable natural resource use in agricultural landscapes is a complex social–ecological challenge that cannot be addressed through traditional reductionist science. More holistic and inclusive (or transdisciplinary) processes are needed. This paper describes a transdisciplinary project for natural resource management planning in two regions (Eyre Peninsula and South Australian Murray-Darling Basin) of southern Australia. With regional staff, we reviewed previous planning to gain an understanding of the processes used and to identify possible improvement in plan development and its operation. We then used an envisioning process to develop a value-rich narrative of regional aspirations to assist stakeholder engagement and inform the development of a land use management option assessment tool called the landscape futures analysis tool (LFAT). Finally, we undertook an assessment of the effectiveness of the process through semi-structured stakeholder interviews. The planning process review highlighted the opinion that the regional plans were not well informed by available science, that they lacked flexibility, and were only intermittently used after publication. The envisioning process identified shared values—generally described as a trust, language that is easily understood, wise use of resources, collaboration and inclusiveness. LFAT was designed to bring the best available science together in a form that would have use in planning, during community consultation and in assessing regional management operations. The LFAT provided spatially detailed but simple models of agricultural yields and incomes, plant biodiversity, weed distribution, and carbon sequestration associated with future combinations of climate, commodity and carbon prices, and costs of production. Stakeholders were impressed by the presentation and demonstration results of the software. While there was anecdotal evidence that the project provided learning opportunities and increased understanding of potential land use change associated with management options under global change, the direct evidence of influence in the updated regional plan was limited. This project had elements required for success in transdisciplinary research, but penetration seems limited. Contributing factors appear to be a complexity of climate effects with economic uncertainty, lack of having the project embedded in the plan revision process, limited continuity and capacity of end users and limited after project support and promotion. Strategies are required to minimise the controlling influence that these limitations can have.

A new systemic approach to improve the sustainability performance of office buildings in the early design stage

Different users and investors’ project preferences, often lead to trade-offs during the early design phase of a project. Currently, decisions of design options and their technical measures are mainly reduced to an instantaneously assessed criterion (i.e. energy efficiency) within the sustainability assessment of buildings. Due to criteria interdependency, the current linear applied approach used in building certification neglects criteria trade-offs and is therefore only partly suitable for holistic building improvement processes. In order to fulfil stakeholder interests on the one hand and a high sustainability performance on the other, it is crucial to identify appropriate design measures. Based on the Austrian building certification system ÖGNI/DGNB, we applied a systemic approach for building sustainability-improvement, using a case study of a public office building in Graz, Austria. The main part of the study describes the important steps required for the systemic optimization of building sustainability. The method applied in this study allows the quantification of the relative influence and the identification of the individual optimization potential of design options on each single assessment criterion. The proposed systemic approach clearly demonstrated the improvement potential of the currently most developed building certification system considering the interdependency between the individual criteria.

Developmental changes in analytic and holistic processes in face perception.

Although infants demonstrate sensitivity to some kinds of perceptual information in faces, many face capacities continue to develop throughout childhood. One debate is the degree to which children perceive faces analytically versus holistically and how these processes undergo developmental change. In the present study, school-aged children and adults performed a perceptual matching task with upright and inverted face and house pairs that varied in similarity of featural or 2nd order configural information. Holistic processing was operationalized as the degree of serial processing when discriminating faces and houses [i.e., increased reaction time (RT), as more features or spacing relations were shared between stimuli]. Analytical processing was operationalized as the degree of parallel processing (or no change in RT as a function of greater similarity of features or spatial relations). Adults showed the most evidence for holistic processing (most strongly for 2nd order faces) and holistic processing was weaker for inverted faces and houses. Younger children (6–8 years), in contrast, showed analytical processing across all experimental manipulations. Older children (9–11 years) showed an intermediate pattern with a trend toward holistic processing of 2nd order faces like adults, but parallel processing in other experimental conditions like younger children. These findings indicate that holistic face representations emerge around 10 years of age. In adults both 2nd order and featural information are incorporated into holistic representations, whereas older children only incorporate 2nd order information. Holistic processing was not evident in younger children. Hence, the development of holistic face representations relies on 2nd order processing initially then incorporates featural information by adulthood.

Debriefing a rescue mission during a terror attack

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore a better understanding of Holistic Debriefing processes from a learning perspective. Design/methodology/approach – During a terror attack in which 69 people were killed and 66 were wounded, a Search and Rescue crew experienced “fear of death” while giving life-saving help to victims of the attack. Afterwards, the crew conducted a Holistic Debriefing. The crew participated in interviews to share their experience of this type of debriefing. Findings – The findings from the Holistic Debriefing sessions suggest that the debriefing process was experienced as positive in terms of social support, emotions and meaning. These experiences are further explained from a learning perspective. Research limitations/implications – This research was conducted on a small group of individuals experiencing an extreme situation, and findings may not readily generalize to other populations or situations. Practical implications – Holistic Debriefing has been adopted by an increasing number of squadrons in the Norwegian Air Force. Social implications – Holistic Debriefing has been implemented at the Norwegian Air Force Academy, and may be relevant for other units involved in similar operations. Originality/value – This study is unique when it comes to exploring Holistic Debriefing of rescue personnel in the aftermath of a terror attack. Moreover, Holistic Debriefing is also addressed as a reflection process in order to enhance individual and group learning processes.

Social presence and the composite face effect

A robust finding in social psychology research is that performance is modulated by the social nature of a given context, promoting social inhibition or facilitation effects. In the present experiment, we examined if and how social presence impacts holistic face perception processes by asking participants, in the presence of others and alone, to perform the composite face task. Results suggest that completing the task in the presence of others (i.e., mere co-action) is associated with better performance in face recognition (less bias and higher discrimination between presented and non-presented targets) and with a reduction in the composite face effect. These results make clear that social presence impact on the composite face effect does not occur because presence increases reliance on holistic processing as a “dominant” well-learned response, but instead, because it increases monitoring of the interference produced by automatic response.

Resource management process framework for dynamic NPD portfolios

This paper presents empirical results from a research on how companies developing products reconfigure their resources (we refer to human resources) as changes continuously occur to their new product development (NPD) portfolios. Although resource scheduling and allocation methods have received a wide attention in academic literature, the systematic and holistic resource management processes that support the whole organization's portfolio are still not understood. We have adopted an action research approach and worked together with different project teams of a multi-national company. This research approach has allowed us to get close contact with the difficulties faced by its managers, imposed by the need to quickly respond to the frequent changes in a coordinated manner. This research contributes to an improved understanding of the context in which resource management decisions are made. For practitioners, this proposes a process framework for organizations to effectively manage their resources in the context of dynamic NPD portfolios.

IT Transformation Decision Processes: A Conceptual Framework for Efficiency/Effectiveness Optimization

Decision processes are complex managerial challenges for long-term information technology (IT) initiatives with an organization-wide scope (in short: IT transformations). Costs, benefits, and risks of such IT investments are hard to capture, and the dozens ofprescriptive methods proposed for IT project evaluation have proved to contribute little to solve the dilemma in practice. Thus, as opposed to continue the search for another prescriptive evaluation methodology, this paper follows a new approach: it targets the development of a conceptual framework that allows for the improved management of holistic IT decision processes - as opposed to cook-book approaches that attempt optimizing the corresponding decisions. The paper introduces a descriptive conceptual framework capable of describing the key components (e.g. socio-political elements) of practical IT transformation decision processes, while at the same time providing enough structure (e.g. rational decision process structures) to allow for decision process effectiveness/efficiency optimization. The framework is then leveraged to deduce theoretical levers for the improvement of practical decision processes. It is suggested as a basis for future structured/holistic case study research ofpractical IT transformation decision processes. To allow for the latter, the paper introduces an approach for the approximation of the involved input and output parameters in the framework.

Model of Sustainable Wellbeing on Decent House Study Case of Bekasi City, West Java, Indonesia

The core goal of the SDGs is to achieve public welfare through holistic approaches and processes (UN, 2012). One of the objectives of SDGs is cities and human settlements inclusive safe, resilient and sustainable. The ability of individuals and government in providing a decent housing could be considered as an important factor for sustainable housing environment. On the other hand, economic growth in urban areas could lead to the urbanization in urban area and migration in the hinterland area to find a shelter location. It maytrigger the improper land utilizations.Urbanization puts a pressure on limited land resources, and, in turn, may have a negative impact on well-being sustainability. House quality could form the housing profile. The adequate housing profile reflects a quality of life, and quality of life itself reflects the well-being as well. This study proposes an estimated model of sustainability to find the housing sustainable indices to the built environment which can be used as one of measurements for a household welfare.This study was conducted in Bekasi City of Indonesia as an emerging urban development in the hinterland area of Jakarta Metropolitan. This research methods combined sampling techniques of stratified and cluster treatments. From the research methods and spatial analysis, the model to measure the well-being referring to the built environment was obtained. The result shows that the sustainable housing environment quality is the core aspect of well-being. However, it is triggered by human quality.

Entrepreneurial Dynamics and Patient Involvement in Service Innovation: Developing a Model to Promote Growth and Sustainability in Mental Health Care

Innovation and entrepreneurship are dynamic and holistic processes that are not restricted to the initial activity of a new undertaking. Many studies link and draw parallels between, not only corporate entrepreneurship and innovation but also innovation and the ability to enhance an organisation’s competitive positioning and to provide outstanding value for its customers. However, a lack of research has been identified regarding the synergy between innovation and entrepreneurship, noting that the synergy between the two concepts helps organisations to prosper. Likewise, continuous service innovation has been described by many authors as the most valuable means for companies to achieve long-term success and organic growth. It is also suggested that for service firms to achieve even greater success, a customer orientation perspective should be adopted. Although a number of studies concerning the service sectors and, in particular, service innovation have been carried out, they have rarely been conducted in the context of health care, and in particular, that of mental health care. In addition, few studies have focused on the interaction and involvement of patients in the development of new health services. This study investigates the influence of user involvement on new health service development and presents the means by which the outcome can enhance a firm’s entrepreneurial activity. On one hand, this study advances previous service innovation theory by associating with the entrepreneurship theory, while on the other, extends previous knowledge regarding the benefits of customer participation in new health service development.

My recovery journey – service users experience of occupational therapy Recovery Oriented Practice in Hong Kong

Using the story of a person’s journey through recovery, the concept of the Recovery model in psychiatric service is revealed. The medical model mainly focuses on clinical recovery that is the elimination or control of symptoms and restoration of function, whereas the Recovery model is concerned with personal recovery, which is the holistic processes of coping with challenges imposed by mental disorders (Johnson 2008). The Recovery model emerged from the consumer/survivor movement in the 1970s, transited in 80s–90s and came to fruition in the millenniums across the world. The introduction of the model to Asia led to a reform in the mental health services of Hong Kong. This article described a real case to demonstrate how an occupational therapist facilitates a person with Bipolar Affective Disorder to take her recovery journey.

Dissociation between the behavioural and electrophysiological effects of the face and body composite illusions.

Several studies have reported similarities between perceptual processes underlying face and body perception, particularly emphasizing the importance of configural processes. Differences between the perception of faces and the perception of bodies were observed by means of a manipulation targeting a specific subtype of configural processing: the composite illusion. The composite face illusion describes the fact that two identical top halves of a face are perceived as being different if they are presented with different bottom parts. This effect disappears, if both halves are laterally shifted. Crucially, the effect of misalignment is not observed for bodies. This study aimed to further explore differences in the time course of face and body perception by using the composite effect. The present results replicated behavioural effects illustrating that misalignment affects the perception of faces but not bodies. Thus, face but not body perception relies on holistic processing. However, differences in the time course of the processing of both stimulus categories emerged at the N170 and P200. The pattern of the behavioural data seemed to be related to the P200. Thus, the present data indicate that holistic processes associated with the effect of misalignment might occur 200ms after stimulus onset.