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The paper aims to investigate the cardiology department’s operational system for improving flexibility by minimizing the patient waiting time and simultaneously maximizing the utilization of service capacity in an uncertain environment. This article also proposes a policy framework that suggests a pool of additional resources and inter-firm collaboration can boost healthcare service delivery excellence.

A discrete event simulation (DES) approach is followed for modeling patient flow and determining the service capacity to respond to demand variability and uncertainty. The model's outputs are used to minimize patient waiting time, maximize the utilization of the resources and match the service capacity with the patient demand.

This research has tested two hypotheses and proved that an increase in waiting time decimates the throughput rate, and additional resources deployment in bottleneck activity positively impacts the throughput rate. The simulated scenarios prescribe an enhanced service capacity with quality care and further contribute to operational performance in reduced waiting time and cost. The results indicate that flexibility reduces the patient waiting time and maximizes the throughput rate.

The study guides the healthcare policymakers to develop flexible competence and facilitate service mechanisms that are adaptive and robust while operating under a volatile environment. The article contributes to the healthcare literature that conjoins flexibility through simulation and resource utilization.

This research is based on real-life primary data collected from healthcare providers. This study adds value to the healthcare systems to adopt strategic decisions to build flexibility through resource allocation, sharing and coordinated care.

The purpose of this study is to explore how a time-varying electromagnetic stirring (EMS) affects the fluid flow and solidification behavior in a slab caster continuous casting mold. Further, the study of inclusion movements in the mold is carried out under the effect of a time-varying electromagnetic field.

A three-dimensional coupled numerical model of solidification and magnetohydrodynamics has been developed for slab caster mold to investigate the inclusions transport by discrete phase model with the use of user-defined functions. Enthalpy porosity and the Lagrangian approach are applied to analyze the behavior of solidification and inclusion.

The study shows that the magnetic field density distribution has a radial symmetry in relation to the stirrer’s center. As the EMS current intensity increases, the strength of the lower recirculation zone gradually decreases and nearly disappears at higher intensities. Additionally, the area of localized remelting zone expands in the solidification front with rising current intensity. The morphology of inclusions and EMS current intensity have a significant impact on the behavior and movement of inclusions within the molten steel.

By using the model, one can optimize the EMS parameter to enhance the quality of steel casting through the elimination of impurities and by improving the microstructure of cast that mainly depend on solidification and flow patterns of molten steel.

Until now, the use of time-varying EMS in the slab caster mold to study solidification and inclusion behavior has not been explored.

The purpose of this article is to numerically investigate the effect of casting speed on the fluid flow, solidification and inclusion motion under the influence of electromagnetic stirring (EMS) in the bloom caster mold with bifurcated submerged entry nozzle (SEN).

The electromagnetic field obtained by solving Maxwell’s equation is coupled with the fluid flow, solidification and discrete phase model using the in-house user-defined functions. An enthalpy porosity approach and Lagrangian approach are applied for the solidification analysis and non-metallic inclusions motion tracking, respectively.

Investigation shows that the casting speed and EMS significantly affect the steel flow, solidification and inclusion behavior inside the mold. Investigations are being conducted into the complex interplay between the induced flow and the SEN’s inertial impinging jet. In low and medium casting speeds, the application of EMS significantly increases the inclusion removal rate. Inclusion removal is studied for its different size and density and further effect of EMS is also reported on cluster formation and distribution of inclusion in the domain.

The model may be used to optimize the process parameter (casting speed and EMS) to improve the casting quality of steel by removing the impurities.

The effect of casting speed on the solidification and inclusion behavior under the influence of time-varying EMS in bloom caster mold with bifurcated nozzle has not been investigated yet. The findings may assist the steelmakers in improving the casting quality.

This paper proposes a decision-making framework for assessing various dimensions and barriers that have affected the admission process in management educational institutions during the ongoing pandemic. The framework considers the interrelationship between the obstacles and highlights the importance of each barrier.

An integrated method based on decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and analytical network process is proposed to structure the barrier assessment framework. Results obtained from the study are validated by comparing them against the conventional analytical hierarchy process.

The results obtained from this study indicate four significant dimensions that hinder admission in Indian management institutes, namely, governmental, financial, sectoral, institutional and market. The top five barriers are demand shift towards technical (alternative) skills, acceptance of the graduated students, lack of industry–institute collaboration, lack of long-term vision and opening new Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs).

During this ongoing pandemic, many educational institutes have been forced to shift from the traditional classroom to a virtual teaching model. In this regard, this study helps identify and assess the barriers to admission in Indian management institutes during this epidemic and thus, contribute to the literature. The findings will assist all stakeholders and policymakers of management institutions design and develop appropriate managerial strategies. The study is conducted in the Indian management educational institute context and can be extended to technical education institutions for deeper insights.

The paper develops an assessment framework for analysing the barriers to admission in Indian management institutes during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Research implications are discussed in the context of a developing country.

An amalgamation of Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytical Network Process (ANP) has been performed to develop a decision-making framework for improving the overall performance of the microfinance institutions. A primary survey was conducted to collect real-time data from the heterogeneous stakeholders of microfinance institutions across India. The validation of the proposed framework is performed by comparing the results against the conventional method of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).

This study identifies various dimensions and indicators for measuring the performance of Indian microfinance institutions. Additionally, the ranking and prioritisation of the performance dimensions and indicators is obtained by considering the mutual interrelation between them.

The study indicates that there exists a significant dyadic relationship between financial performance and social performance for improving the overall performance of the microfinance institutions. Governance is found to unidirectionally influence both financial and social performance. Among all the considered dimensions, financial performance of a microfinance institution is the most critical dimension for improving the overall performance. The top five performance indicators of the Indian microfinance institutions are funding source, borrowing and overhead cost, size of the firm, end-use of the money and depth of outreach.

The study was conducted in the context of Indian microfinance institutions; hence the scope of generalisation of the results is limited. This research considers both subjective and objective aspect of the performance dimensions and indicators from the perspective of multiple stakeholders (i.e. firm, society and regulator). The integrated framework is expected to aid in improving overall performance of microfinance institutions by focusing on the most critical (high prioritised) performance indicators.

An integrated DEMATEL-ANP framework is used in the domain of microfinance to assess the performance dimensions. This study is unique in terms of analysing performance of microfinance institutions from the perspective of heterogeneous stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to identify, analyse and model the post-processing barriers of 3D-printed medical models (3DPMM) printed by fused deposition modelling to overcome these barriers for improved operational efficiency in the Indian context.

The methodology used interpretive structural modelling (ISM), cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to understand the hierarchical and contextual relations among the barriers of the post-processing.

A total of 11 post-processing barriers were identified in this study using ISM, literature review and experts’ input. The MICMAC analysis identified support material removal, surface finishing, cleaning, inspection and issues with quality consistency as significant driving barriers for post-processing. MICMAC also identified linkage barriers as well as dependent barriers. The ISM digraph model was developed using a final reachability matrix, which would help practitioners specifically tackle post-processing barriers. Further, the DEMATEL method allows practitioners to emphasize the causal effects of post-processing barriers and guides them in overcoming these barriers.

There may have been a few post-processing barriers that were overlooked by the Indian experts, which might have been important for other country’s perspective.

The presented ISM model and DEMATEL provide directions for operation managers in planning operational strategies for overcoming post-processing issues in the medical 3D-printing industry. Also, managers may formulate operational strategies based on the driving and dependence power of post-processing barriers as well as the causal effects relationships of the barriers.

This study contributes to identifying, analyzing and modelling the post-processing barriers of 3DPMM through a combined ISM and DEMATEL methodology, which has not yet been reviewed. This study also contributes to decision makers developing suitable strategies to overcome the post-processing barriers for improved operational efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to explore when, why and to what extent firms should intervene in firm-hosted idea-generation communities, and to develop a framework for firm-intervention.

A single case-study is conducted in a highly successful firm-hosted idea-generation community called Dell IdeaStorm, whereby the netnographic approach is applied.

The findings indicate that, overall, firm-participation is minimal and passive, and varies according to the three stages of the idea lifecycle in the community, such as ideation stage – here firm-participation is limited to acknowledgement of new ideas, checking for redundancy, managing search tool and profanity filtering; discussion and development stage – here firm-participation is more active by providing feedback and clarification when needed, troubleshooting, asking for additional input on an idea, etc.; and completion stage – here a firm intervenes to screen and select the most promising ideas for implementation and also provides status updates on ideas.

This study contributes by developing a new framework for firm-participation, which is useful for the early diagnosis of community issues in idea generation. The framework is also a tactical tool which can be used to guide community managers in selecting the correct moderation approach, depending on the specific stage in the idea lifecycle.

This study aims to identify service quality dimensions for logistics service providers (LSPs) and to examine their relationships with customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Service quality dimensions are identified from vast literature review. Customers who take services from LSPs were surveyed to collect data on basis of developed survey instrument. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is applied to test the proposed research hypotheses.

The study shows that all the five service quality constructs, i.e. “Operational Quality”, “Resource Quality”, “Information Quality”, “Personnel Contact Quality” and “Customization and Innovation Quality” have direct relationship with customer satisfaction. They also have indirect relationship with customer loyalty, implying the full mediation of customer satisfaction.

The results of the study suggest that the logistics service quality (LSQ) can be measured multi-dimensionally. It provides clear implications to LSPs for improvement of service quality. The present research work is expected to be useful for both, logistics service providers and the customer organizations, which take services from LSPs. LSPs can develop strategies to improve their service quality on basis of findings from this study.

The present research will help in extending the existing literature on service quality in context to LSPs.

Prisoners are at a higher risk of HIV infection compared to the general population. The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalence of HIV and related risk behaviours among inmates of the Central Prisons in four states of North India.

The HIV sentinel surveillance was conducted in seven Central Prisons in four states of North India from February to April 2019. Four hundred inmates were included from each prison. The interviews were conducted at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre located within the prison premises. The Ethics Committee of the National AIDS Control Organization, New Delhi, granted ethical approval before the start of the surveillance.

Overall, 2,721 inmates were enrolled in this study. The mean (SD) age was 38.9 (13.9) years. One-third of prison inmates had comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The proportion of convict (54%) and undertrial (46%) inmates was almost equal. The overall prevalence of HIV infection among inmates was 0.96% (95% CI 0.65–1.40). The odds of being HIV positive were significantly higher in never married inmates, undertrials, inmates who were in the prison for more than three months to one year, inmates incarcerated for multiple times, inmates with history of injecting drug use and inmates with history of intercourse with a commercial sex worker.

The findings from the very first HIV sentinel surveillance in central prisons in North India have been presented in this paper. This has huge implications for future policy decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of big data through patentometric insights for R&D decision-making.

This study assesses the inventive activity through ‘big data’ patents, registered by inventors worldwide, using WIPO Patentscope database. The objective is to use the insights from patentometrics for R&D decision-making. The data from WIPO PatentScope (https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/search.jsf) was searched for current patent scenario in area of ‘big data’. The data was further organized and cleaned using the Google ‘OpenRefine’. Data was pre-processed to remove all null values. Cleaned data was analyzed using programming language ‘R’, MS Excel (charts and Pivot tables) and free data visualization tool called ‘Tableau Public’, to get insights for R&D decision-making.

The key insights included trends (patents with years of publication), top technologies trending the current space, top organizations leading in these technologies and the top inventors who are publishing patents in these technologies through leading organizations were drawn. Details in Section 5 in the paper.

Global patent data is multi-lingual and spreads across a set of multiple databases. Domain experts may be required to assess, identify and extract the relevant information for analysis and visualization of multi-lingual distributed data sets. Government organizations generally have multi-dimensional goals that may be more toward societal benefits. On the other hand, the commercial companies are more focused on profit. Therefore, the performance management process has to be really effective because it is critical for getting value in the government sector.

Insights from patent analytics serve as the important input to R&D managers as well as policymakers to assess the global needs to plan the national orientation according to the global market. This will help further for R&D projects prioritization, planning, budget allocations, human capital planning and other gamut of R&D management and decision-making.

Facilitation for R&D institutions (government as well as private) to formulate the research strategy for the domains or research areas to delve into. R&D decisions will be completely data-driven making them more accurate, reliable, valid and informed. These insights are very relevant for policymakers as well to facilitate the need assessment to determine the National priorities, make improvements in meeting societal country-level challenges during the resource allocation at top and subsequently at all other levels.

Data analytics of global patents in “big data” till 2019 to get insights to facilitate R&D decision-making.