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Value for money (VfM) assessments often lack effective automatic processes and reasoning support in public-private partnership (PPP) projects. To automate these assessments, this paper proposes a comprehensive approach that aligns with the goals of building information modeling (BIM) as the necessary information support and ontology for the knowledge process. The main contribution of this work is the retrieval of information from the BIM environment with the ontological knowledge base to enable more efficient and persuasive methods for project and finance management that facilitate decision-making rather than an experience-based approach. The constructed ontology can also be reused and further expanded to include project needs from end-user perspectives. This work is expected to further the research on expanding semantic BIM-based decision making in different infrastructure procurement projects.

We develop a performance evaluation model that incorporates the factors proposed by Huij and Derwall (2008) and a fund-specific benchmark to analyse the performance of US fixed income funds. Using the full sample, and accounting for the possibility of false discoveries, we find that fund management companies extract most of any abnormal performance produced by their fund managers. Our sub-sample analysis indicates that after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) there was a substantial increase in the number of bond funds with: both positive gross-of-fee alpha and positive net-of-fee alpha performance; and also a reduction in funds with negative-alpha performance. However, because the GFC was such a unique event, it would still be difficult to conclude that these managers offer value for money for investors compared to passive alternatives.

This chapter reviews a number of themes that have played a crucial role in the debate on alternative contracting regimes for the provision of urban bus services. We have selected four crucial issues to reflect on: (i) contractual regimes (in particular competitive tendering as compared to negotiated performance based contracts, as means to award the rights to provide service); (ii) contract completeness (focussing on ex ante and ex post elements); (iii) building trust through partnership; and (iv) tactical or system level planning for bus services. Experience in these areas suggests that competitive tendering has frequently not lived up to expectations and that negotiation is likely in many circumstances to deliver better value for money.

Pressures to cut public expenditure and to reach high value for money of projects that use scarce public money are evident across the globe. At the same time there seems to be a lack of decision support tools for pin-pointing whether public services are yielding net benefits. Accountability is called for but the ‘accounting systems’ that validate the right choices in service delivery are not yet thoroughly established. As a response, an impact evaluation via a real-world case study of a multi-modal transport safety agency is presented. The main contribution of this article is methodological, including a summary of study cordoning; description of methods to map impact mechanisms; quantification of socio-economic impacts of services; the benefit to cost (B/C) appraisal of services and service bundles, and evaluation of an agency's overall B/C ratio by applying the findings to systems level. The described analytical process is repeatable elsewhere with modifications or as it stands.

Our vision about breast cancer quality care within a global health framework was recently published by Oxford University Press. The aim of our work was to reflect on the potential to achieve a world-wide improvement in quality care, assessing value for money. The population-based survival estimates from the CONCORD programme and the Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI) are valuable tools for this global effort. Because cancer care delivery is becoming unsustainable in many countries assessing healthcare value for the cost is becoming increasingly important. Recommendations are made for better global quality care for patients with breast cancer.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have revolutionised the tourism domain, providing a wide set of new services for tourists and tourism businesses. Both tourists and tourism businesses use dedicated tourism platforms to search and share information generating, constantly, new tourism crowdsourced data. This crowdsourced information has a huge influence in tourist decisions. In this context, the paper proposes a stream recommendation engine supported by crowdsourced information, adopting Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) matrix factorisation algorithm for rating prediction. Additionally, we explore different: (i) profiling approaches (hotel-based and theme-based) using hotel multi-criteria ratings, location, value for money (VfM) and sentiment value (StV); and (ii) post-recommendation filters based on hotel location, VfM and StV. The main contribution focusses on the application of post-recommendation filters to the prediction of hotel guest ratings with both hotel and theme multi-criteria rating profiles, using crowdsourced data streams. The results show considerable accuracy and classification improvement with both hotel-based and theme-based multi-criteria profiling together with location and StV post-recommendation filtering. While the most promising results occur with the hotelbased version, the best theme-based version shows a remarkable memory conciseness when compared with its hotel-based counterpart. This makes this theme-based approach particularly appropriate for data streams. The abstract completely needs to be rewritten. It does not provide a clear view of the problem and its solutions the researchers proposed. In addition, it should cover five main elements, introduction, problem statement, methodology, contributions and results. Done.

The United States and Canada are unique in their reliance on a mixed public–private system of drug insurance. Prices paid are among the highest globally, with US prices higher than Canadian prices. In this chapter, we review the reimbursement policies of the public and private plans in both countries and the role of national price regulator in Canada. We also focus on the role of intermediaries. In the United States, these include pharmacy benefit managers that secure discounts for large-scale private drug plans. In Canada, this includes health technology assessment agencies that provide evidence on value for money for new drugs.

Project success is a heterogeneous measure. Different stakeholders may have different definitions of successful project. Ex-post evaluation can and should be used to demonstrate whether a scheme has performed as promised and to assess its success from different perspectives. The paper demonstrates the use of a goal-oriented evaluation framework that is currently used on large Norwegian infrastructure projects. The framework includes traditional value for money measures, but more importantly it maps the results of schemes against the original objectives. The paper presents a recent evaluation of a motorway project. The evaluation suggests that the project has been successful and that the determinants for success were actions taken decades before implementation, namely during the appraisal and the construction.

If VADs and ECMO are to become part of routine care, they need to demonstrate that they are cost-effective. Otherwise, the time and money they consume would be better spent elsewhere in the health system. A cost-effective therapy is one that provides value for money in terms of the healthy life years gained for the costs incurred. The lives saved by VADs and ECMO need to be balanced against their relatively high cost. In this chapter we explain the key parts of a cost-effectiveness analysis using examples from published studies of VADs and ECMO.

Most companies have training budgets, but relatively few companies use their training dollars wisely. While it would serve no useful purpose to list the names or headlines of reliability conferences that give little value for money spent, we might just look at some of the exceptions. We found user conferences that allow networking with top-tier professionals of greatest benefit. We firmly believe that a reliability professional who owns (and treasures) a personal library of technical texts is a better professional than the one who (mistakenly) believes that everything of value can be found on the Internet. We also found that good managers insist on feedback from the employee who returns from attending a training session or conference. On a related topic, we observe and much regret that training budgets get cut first whenever the economy takes a downturn.

From here the book addresses techniques of performance measurement and quantitative methods are illustrated in this chapter. This includes statistical returning, metrics for e-resources, library analytics, bibliometrics, altmetrics, questionnaires, surveys. Where possible examples of use of each method are presented and the chapter concludes with a brief overview of demonstrating value for money through quantitative methods.

Packaging diachronically played a crucial role in assisting the preservation, transportation, and selling of food. Nowadays, food sector investigates and evaluates sophisticated packaging solutions to extend shelf life, optimize value for money and improve marketing. In this view, nanomaterials, which are currently a subject of vivid research in academia, are emerged as potential additives to improve functional properties of food packaging. According to their dimensionality, nanomaterials can be classified as zero- (0-D), 1- (1-D) and 2-dimensional (2-D). More specifically, 0-D nanomaterials relate to nanoparticles, 1-D nanomaterials relate mainly to nanotubes and nanofibers, while 2-D nanomaterials characterized by their platy structure in their elementary units. This chapter presents nanomaterials of different compositions and shape, which have been proposed for plastic packaging in order to enhance specific properties and to assist the food industry.

Donors and recipients have spent large sums over decades on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) and counterpart funding to reduce poverty, ignorance, and unemployment. Consequently, both groups heavily invested in justifying development programs to show value for money through effective means. Key questions ask what does ODA seek to achieve by bringing together institutions around the world to improve living standards, and how can Impact Assessment (IA) influence the way ODA organizes efforts to accomplish these aims? Likewise, recipient nations and third-party partners seek best practices to get value for money from development projects. IA finds ODA to be successful when ideas flow openly between development partners as impact assessment helps everyone to learn from experience. In this learning process, each project tells a unique story, and IA influences each storyline as an array of stakeholders contribute to findings. This chapter reviews the policymaking cycle founded on predicting – recommending – evaluating – redesigning projects as it affects ODA; chronicles development partner roles (recipients, donors, and third parties); and, demonstrates, with case studies, how ODA promotes sharing of knowledge.

Assessing the Impact of Foreign Aid: Value for Money and Aid for Trade provides updated information on how to improve foreign aid programs, exploring the concept and practice of impact assessment within the sometimes-unproblematic approaches advocated in current literature of value for money and aid for trade. Contributors from multi-lateral agencies and NGOs discuss the changing patterns of Official Development Assistance and their effects on impact assessment, providing theoretical, political, structural, methodological, and practical frameworks, discussions, and a theory-practice nexus. With twin foci of economics and policy this book raises the potential for making sophisticated and coherent decisions on aid allocation to developing countries. * Addresses the impact of aid for trade and value for money, rather than its implementation* Discusses the changing patterns of Official Development Assistance and their effects on impact assessment, providing theoretical, political, structural, methodological, and practical frameworks, discussions, and a theory-practice nexus* Assesses the effects and implications of the value for money and aid for trade agendas* Highlights economic issues

In this final chapter, the overall outcomes of the research presented in this book will be drawn together in the form of proposed lessons for higher education. The success of the virtual learning environment (VLE) in ways that were unintended, and that served to support missions in the first instance rather than changing them, has much to tell us at a critical point where there is renewed interest and some renewed investment in online learning. Assumptions about technologies, and how they can be used in campus-based higher education institutions, have surfaced once more. To avoid repeated cycles of disappointment it is vital to address these assumptions. The lessons proposed seek to recognise the importance of mediation as a two-way process, support the need to identify what Objects motivate different activities in higher education, and to integrate our approaches to academic professional development. In addressing these challenges, it will be argued, we stand a much better chance of getting the return on investment that we want and, more importantly, an education system that can contribute to achieving better learning experiences and greater equality of access.

Increasingly the growing health consequences associated with contemporary lifestyles are drawing particular attention to the conflicting role that food plays in supporting and maintaining good health on the one hand while on the other being viewed as the main culprit behind the emergence, and growth, of many dietary-related illnesses. Rapidly changing environmental and lifestyle conditions are encouraging less activity while at the same time providing ubiquitous access to an unimaginable array of food 24/7. Within this context, consumers are seeking foods which satisfy multiple, and often conflicting, needs in tandem and thus the desire for convenient, tasty, healthy, socially acceptable, easily accessible foods that offer value for money frame many food choice decisions. This article explores the multitude of influences that shape and frame consumer interpretations of food, diet, and health, considers how contemporary food choices are driven by health motives, and reflects on how the commercial food industry has responded.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the concept of Aid for Trade (AfT) within a context of Official Development Assistance and to submit it to a critical analysis based on its own shortcomings as much as the critique from the “right” and from the “left” of the politico-economic spectrum. The chapter provides a critical analysis of AfT, including notions such as trade not aid and the neoliberal agendas. Following from the critical analysis the discussion turns to paradigm shifts in AfT bringing to the fore AfT as a subset of the Value for Money philosophy in Official Development Assistance.

The quality-adjusted life year (QALY) is a unit of measurement for valuing health outcomes. It is designed to capture in one single measure an individual's gain in utility from improvement in both quality of life and length of life. Cost-effectiveness ratios using QALYs allow comparisons of value for money of different interventions in different areas of medicine. The article explains how QALYs are constructed and measured and notes a number of assumptions on which the measure builds. The history of QALYs is briefly described, and alternatives to QALYs – healthy year equivalents, disability adjusted life years, and saved young life equivalents – are outlined.

Homelessness interventions are implemented to assist those who are homeless meet their housing and nonshelter needs. In Australia, homelessness interventions are largely financed and administered by governments; nongovernment community organisations and local government councils are responsible for the direct provision of services to clients. Interventions are undertaken in respect of crisis and transitional accommodation support, early intervention programs targeting households at imminent risk of homelessness, and homelessness prevention and structural programs designed to address the underlying causes of homelessness. Evaluations assess whether, and to what extent, a homelessness intervention has been well managed, is effective in addressing the needs of clients, achieves positive outcomes for clients, and represents good value for money. Australian homelessness intervention evaluations have consistently found that homelessness interventions improve outcomes for clients. However, a significant gap exists in the Australian evaluation literature in relation to experimental and quasi-experimental studies on the effectiveness of homelessness programs and economic evaluations of homelessness interventions.

The title “Handbook” belies the size and scope of this text on gynaecological cancer that, despite being a paperback, weighs in at over three - quarters of a kilogram and extends to 450 pages. The range of chapters is extensive, covering basic sciences such as statistics and pharmacology, through modality-oriented chapters, to chapters on the management of site-specific tumours. One expects American gynaecological cancer textbooks to include breast cancer and, indeed, this is no exception. However, it is surprising to find a chapter on colorectal cancer, although this is by no means inappropriate given the frequent difficulties in differential diagnosis between advanced gynaecological and colorectal tumours. The individual chapters are by experts in the field and are well laid out with short, clear paragraphs and helpful tables. References are not included although texts for further reading are suggested. Algorithms are presented for the management of common cancers and the treatments proposed are generally applicable in the U.K. There are some helpful diagrams, although that for a radical vulvectomy represents a surgical technique that went out of favour in the U.K 10-20 years ago. This does, perhaps echo the American predisposition to radical surgery as primary therapy. In addition, there is an emphasis on chemotherapy, both generally and in the site-specific chapters, and radiotherapy is not represented to the same extent. There are no diagrams of radiotherapy volumes, field arrangements or brachytherapy applications. The amount of detail on radiotherapy is very variable between chapters - that in the endometrial chapter is helpful whilst there is little detail in the cervical chapter and reference back to the generic radiotherapy chapter is needed. This book is intended for trainees in gynaecological, medical and radiation oncology and as a consequence, this wide range of chapters is provided to allow trainees some basic infomation about specialities other than their own. It achieves this admirably. For established professionals in the speciality this book is probably too general to be of great value although it may serve as a quick reference book in other specialities. At $29.95, this book is certainly value for money, within the reach of most residents and competitive with other handbooks that try to achieve the same goal. However, clinical oncology residents must not see it as providing all that is needed for the radiotherapeutic management of gynaecological cancer.

In depth knowledge of anatomy is central to interpretation of multiplanar cross-sectional imaging. Moreover, it is important to correlate 2 dimensional radiographic image with a relevant cross-sectional image. This book achieves the same through dealing with body part anatomy in the regional manner. The first fifty odd pages are devoted to outline the principles and technique of all imaging processes. Subsequently, each body region is sequentially illustrated on all relevant imaging modalities. This book is recommended to be introduced as a must for all the PG residents within the first year of their residency. A real value for money acquisition for the department.

Publisher Summary This chapter provides a workbook that has been produced as a software package for use on a personal computer and has been developed as a user-friendly tool for a user to develop a short-list of options that can be ranked in terms of value for money. This chapter briefly describes the operation of the workbook and discusses some illustrative examples of its use. The IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA GHG) assesses technologies that can be used to reduce emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere. In 2001, IEA GHG appointed an Australian consortium to carry out the development of a computer based workbook to provide utility planners and power plant management with a self-contained tool for “first-pass” assessment of retrofit options for reducing CO2 emissions from power stations. It was intended that the workbook would contain sufficient information for a user to identify a number of options that might be suitable for retrofit to a particular power plant.

Plant layout can affect the total operation of a company, including the production processes, equipment, storage, dispatch, and administration. It has a direct effect upon production efficiency and economics of the operation, the morale of employees, and can affect the physical health of operatives. A production facility is considered as a facility for processing pharmaceuticals or food products or manufacturing engineering products or consumer goods. The facility must utilize real estate, equipment, materials, and labor to generate profit for investors. Layout planning involves knowledge of a wide range of technologies that extend beyond those of individual planners and the full range of expertise may not exist in a production facility. This chapter presents design methods that allow a layout plan to be quickly formulated. The first step in any design is to identify the real need, and this is often the most difficult task. Without it, designs can be produced which do not satisfy the requirements and the end result is often unsatisfactory. It is essential to clearly define the objectives of the task and to re-confirm the objectives as time progresses. A useful aid is a value analysis at the end of the concept design stage. This assesses the design for value for money while meeting the defined project objectives.

Publisher Summary The first step in choosing programs is to find out what is available. The most convenient way to do this is to study one of the several guides to computers in the construction industry that are available. Such guides normally give a brief description of the aims of each program, the machines on which it is available, and the name of the marketing organization. They are usually organized in such a manner that programs performing the same tasks are listed together. Thus the prospective user can see the choice in any application area. Additionally, browsing through these guides is a convenient way of finding out what scope the computer aids might have within an office. It is useful to get some idea of the amount of effort that went into producing the program. A large investment by the vendor at least indicates a willingness to take the trouble to get things right. Any program of less than 1000 lines of a high-level language is probably trivial. It simply does not have the space in which to make input easy for the user, solve a reasonably complex problem, and provide properly laid out results. It is wise to be particularly careful before buying a program emanating from a university or technical college. As they do not have to justify themselves commercially, the programs can be very good value for money. Even with a good program, it is important to check that maintenance and support is available all year round.

Publisher Summary This chapter explains the organization of company-wide quality control (QC). Company-wide QC is concerned with the effectiveness of the management of a company's design and manufacturing system, commencing with market research and continuing through design and manufacture to aftersales service and the evaluation of data obtained from user experience, with the combined objectives of obtaining customer satisfaction, giving value for money, and making a contribution to profit. QC must ensure that all of these functions have the same objectives, and this is sometimes more difficult than it might at first appear. The creation of a feedback system is essential to the quality program, as this must ensure that the achievement at each stage in the manufacturing cycle is consistent with the overall plan. Any deficiency must be analyzed, and adjustments made to the plan in the light of shortcomings must be identified by this procedure. It is recommended that QC monitor all data obtainable from the customer to ensure that these problems are minimized and that adequate customer training and after-sales service is given.