Blockchain-enabled infrastructural security solution for serverless consortium fog and edge computing.

The robust development of the blockchain distributed ledger, the Internet of Things (IoT), and fog computing-enabled connected devices and nodes has changed our lifestyle nowadays. Due to this, the increased rate of device sales and utilization increases the demand for edge computing technology with collaborative procedures. However, there is a well-established paradigm designed to optimize various distinct quality-of-service requirements, including bandwidth, latency, transmission power, delay, duty cycle, throughput, response, and edge sense, and bring computation and data storage closer to the devices and edges, along with ledger security and privacy during transmission. In this article, we present a systematic review of blockchain Hyperledger enabling fog and edge computing, which integrates as an outsourcing computation over the serverless consortium network environment. The main objective of this article is to classify recently published articles and survey reports on the current status in the domain of edge distributed computing and outsourcing computation, such as fog and edge. In addition, we proposed a blockchain-Hyperledger Sawtooth-enabled serverless edge-based distributed outsourcing computation architecture. This theoretical architecture-based solution delivers robust data security in terms of integrity, transparency, provenance, and privacy-protected preservation in the immutable storage to store the outsourcing computational ledgers. This article also highlights the changes between the proposed taxonomy and the current system based on distinct parameters, such as system security and privacy. Finally, a few open research issues and limitations with promising future directions are listed for future research work.

Privatisation of government services in Australia: what is known about health and equity impacts.

BACKGROUND: Historically in Australia, all levels of government created collective wealth by owning and operating infrastructure, and managing natural assets, key public goods and essential services while being answerable to the public. This strong state tradition was challenged in the 1980s when privatisation became a widespread government approach globally. Privatisation involves displacing the public sector through modes of financing, ownership, management and product or service delivery. The Australian literature shows that negative effects from privatisation are not spread equitably, and the health and equity impacts appear to be under-researched. This narrative overview aims to address a gap in the literature by answering research questions on what evidence exists for positive and negative outcomes of privatisation; how well societal impacts are evaluated, and the implications for health and equity. METHODS: Database and grey literature were searched by keywords, with inclusion criteria of items limited to Australia, published between 1990 and 2022, relating to any industry or government sector, including an evaluative aspect, or identifying positive or negative aspects from privatisation, contracting out, or outsourcing. Thematic analysis was aided by NVivo qualitative data software and guided by an a-priori coding frame. RESULTS: No items explicitly reflected on the relationship between privatisation and health. Main themes identified were the public cost of privatisation, loss of government control and expertise, lack of accountability and transparency, constraints to accessing social determinants of health, and benefits accruing to the private sector. DISCUSSION: Our results supported the view that privatisation is more than asset-stripping the public sector. It is a comprehensive strategy for restructuring public services in the interests of capital, with privatisation therefore both a political and commercial determinant of health. There is growing discussion on the need for re-nationalisation of certain public assets, including by the Victorian government. CONCLUSION: Privatisation of public services is likely to have had an adverse impact on population health and contributed to the increase in inequities. This review suggests that there is little evidence for the benefits of privatisation, with a need for greater attention to political and commercial determinants of health in policy formation and in research.

Evaluation of outstanding theories in outsourcing with practices in the public health sector: The case of Türkiye.

Outsourcing is an essential tool in supply management. This study examines the current outsourcing application areas of the public health sector in Türkiye. Application examples are presented, together with the prominent theories in outsourcing (Transaction Cost Economics Theory (TCE), Core Competencies Theory (CCT), Agency Theory (AT), Resource-Based View Theory (RBVT), Relational Theory (RT), and Social Change Theory (SCT), Turkish public procurement legislation, Ministry of Health outsourcing practices, and public hospitals are discussed for review and example. The examination shows that foreign dependency on the public health sector is increasing, and more than one theory is applied in some procurement processes. As a result of this study, examining and comparing which theories come to the fore in outsourcing in other countries is recommended.

Integrative Review of Workplace Health Promotion in the Business Process Outsourcing Industry: Focus on the Philippines.

Objective: The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines has experienced substantial growth, making a significant contribution to the country's economy. However, concerns about work-related health and safety issues have emerged, necessitating effective workplace health promotion strategies for BPO employees. Study design: An integrative review of relevant literature was conducted to explore workplace health promotion in the BPO sector. Methods: The search included quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies, pertinent laws, policies, news articles, and reports published between 2000 and 2022. The scope was intentionally broad to encompass a diverse range of relevant evidence related to workplace health in this field. Articles published both in the English and Filipino languages were considered. Results: Findings revealed that BPO workers face risks related to physical and psychological stress, sleep disturbances, and occupational diseases owing to the unique challenges inherent to the nature of their jobs. While there are existing occupational health and labor laws, compliance among BPO companies remains a problem, and only a few organizations offer comprehensive wellness programs. Building upon the available evidence, a conceptual framework was developed to provide guidance for enhancing workplace health promotion initiatives specifically designed for BPOs in the country. Conclusion: Workplace health promotion is vital to warrant the health and safety of BPO workers. This study offers evidence-based recommendations for implementing effective well-being strategies, highlighting the importance of collaboration among employers, employees, and society to prioritize employee health in the workplace.

Changes in University Hospital Physicians' Work and Family Lives Following Outsourcing of Housework Cleaning Tasks.

Background: Japan is reviewing how physicians operate and plans to implement a work-style reform for physicians in 2024. This study examined how outsourcing housework cleaning tasks changed the daily lives of university hospital physicians. Methods: A total of 18 physicians participated in the study, outsourcing cleaning tasks either once or thrice. Results: Fourteen out of 18 respondents reported a decrease in the burden of household chores. Additionally, 10 respondents reported having more time for family contact, and nine respondents reported having more time for their own hobbies and diversions. Meanwhile, only five respondents reported that they had more time to work. Conclusion: Outsourcing housework cleaning tasks and using the newly created time for family and self may improve work performance.

A trusted medical data sharing framework for edge computing leveraging blockchain and outsourced computation.

Traditional cloud-centric approaches to medical data sharing pose risks related to real-time performance, security, and stability. Medical and healthcare data encounter challenges like data silos, privacy breaches, and transmission latency. In response to these challenges, this paper introduces a blockchain-based framework for trustworthy medical data sharing in edge computing environments. Leveraging healthcare consortium edge blockchains, this framework enables fine-grained access control to medical data. Specifically, it addresses the real-time, multi-attribute authorization challenge in CP-ABE through a Distributed Attribute Authorization strategy (DAA) based on blockchain. Furthermore, it tackles the key security issues in CP-ABE through a Distributed Key Generation protocol (DKG) based on blockchain. To address computational resource constraints in CP-ABE, we enhance a Distributed Modular Exponentiation Outsourcing algorithm (DME) and elevate its verifiable probability to "1". Theoretical analysis establishes the IND-CPA security of this framework in the Random Oracle Model. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution for resource-constrained end-user devices in edge computing environments.

Talent outsourcing in Ghana: A qualitative study of managed service personnel and technology leadership.

Managed Service Personnel (MSPs) have become critical sources of innovation, expertise and superior technology-enhanced performance. This understanding has, however, generated conflicting outcomes, as some hold a contrary view. This study examined the contribution of MSPs to achieving organizational targets in the northern cluster of a reputable bank in Ghana in order to determine the bank's outsourcing decisions, MSP responsibilities, and how such roles compare with those of permanent staff of the bank. The study employed qualitative approaches involving group and individual interviews with 66 participants. The investigation revealed that, among others, the bank outsourced MSPs for expertise, technology, innovation, and cost efficiency. It was also determined that MSPs outperformed regular staff in the areas of technology-enabled productivity, profitability, quality services, and organizational efficiency using unmatched skills, experience, and expertise. A novelty of the study is the culmination of new insight into a performance outlook developed to help organizational leaders make informed decisions. The performance outlook also present critical implications for theory, policy, and practice.

'Accident and emergency'? Exploring the reasons for increased privatisation in England's NHS.

England's NHS is experiencing rising privatisation as services are increasingly being delivered by private healthcare providers. This has led to concerns about the supposed benefit of this process on healthcare quality but the reasons for the increase - and whether processes prioritise quality - are not well understood. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 people involved in the commissioning process, sampled from 3 commissioning sites (regional health boards) are thematically analysed. Four key themes of reasons for outsourcing were identified: unmet need; the "choice agenda"; appetite for change amongst key individuals working at the commissioning body; and the impact of financial pressures. The study concludes that the experience of commissioners navigating the provision of healthcare with worsening social determinants of health and financial austerity means that decisions to use private providers based on anticipated quality are sometimes but not always possible - sometimes they constitute 'accidents', sometimes 'emergencies'.

Outsourcing the Management of Reusable Medical Devices in a Chain-Wide Care Setting: Mixed Methods Feasibility Study.

BACKGROUND: Managing reusable medical devices incurs substantial health care costs and complexity, particularly in integrated care settings. This complexity hampers care quality, safety, and costs. Studying logistical innovations within integrated care can provide insights to medical devices use among staff effectively. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to establish the feasibility of a logistical intervention through outsourcing and a web portal. The goal was to provide insights into users' acceptability of the intervention, on whether the intervention was successfully implemented, and on the intervention's preliminary efficacy, thus benefiting practitioners and researchers. METHODS: This paper presents a mixed methods feasibility study at a large chain-wide health care provider in the Netherlands. The intervention entailed outsourcing noncritical reusable medical devices and introducing a web portal for device management. A questionnaire gauged perceived ordering and delivery times, satisfaction with the ordering and delivery process, compliance with safety and hygiene certification, and effects on the care delivery process. Qualitative data in the form of observations, documentation, and interviews were used to identify implementing challenges. Using on-site stocktaking and data from information systems, we analyzed the utilization, costs, and rental time of medical devices before and after the intervention for wheelchairs and anti-pressure ulcer mattresses. RESULTS: Looking at the acceptability of the intervention, a high user satisfaction with the ordering and delivery process was reported (rated on a 5-point Likert scale). With respect to preliminary efficacy, we noted a reduction in the utilization of wheelchairs (on average, 1106, SD 106 fewer utilization d/mo), and a halted increase in the utilization of anti-pressure ulcer mattresses. In addition, nurses who used the web portal reported shorter ordering times for wheelchairs (-2.7 min) and anti-pressure ulcer mattresses (-3.1 min), as well as shorter delivery times for wheelchairs (-0.5 d). Moreover, an increase in device certification was reported (average score of 1.9, SD 1.0), indicating higher levels of safety and hygiene standards. In theory, these improvements should translate into better outcomes in terms of costs and the quality of care. However, we were unable to establish a reduction in total care costs or a reduced rental time per device. Furthermore, respondents did not identify improvements in safety or the quality of care. Although implementation challenges related to the diverse supply base and complexities with different care financers were observed, the overall implementation of the intervention was considered successful. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms the feasibility of our intervention, in terms of acceptability, implementation success, and preliminary efficacy. The integrated management of medical devices should enable a reduction in costs, required devices, and material waste, as well as higher quality care. However, several challenges remain related to the implementation of such interventions.

Are "outsiders" in? Exploring the impact of outsourced workers' perceived insider status and job value status on job performance.

Introduction: Outsourcing, one of the nonstandard employment forms, has been increasingly popular with a wide variety of industries and employers. However, much less is known about its consequences at the employee level, especially relative to standard-employed colleagues. Drawing on social categorization theory and the human resource architecture model, the study was to investigate how outsourced (vs. standard) employment form impacts employees' perceived insider status and then job performance, as well as the moderating role of job value status. Methods: To examine these effects, we collected two-wave and multi-source questionnaires from a sample of 147 outsourced employees, 279 standard employees, and their immediate supervisors. And interviews with 31 employees, their supervisors, and human resources personnel provided further support for our findings. Results: The results showed that relative to standard employees, outsourced employees were lower in perceived insider status and indirectly worse in job performance. Furthermore, both the comparative effects were stronger among core-status than peripheral-status employees. Discussion: Our study contributes to outsourcing and widely nonstandard employment literature, bringing the research focus from employers to outsourced employees' psychological and behavioral consequences. Also, we extended literature on the human resource architecture, through a deeper investigation on the issue of employment form-job value status (mis)matching as well as its impacts on employees.

What we know about the trends, prospects, and challenges of human resource outsourcing: A systematic literature review.

This study aims to comprehensively review the literature on human resource outsourcing (HRO) published from 2001 to 2021. The study begins with metadata analysis on 69 papers and presents insights into 32 papers on HRO identified from the Scopus and ISI Web of Science databases. The literature is classified based on content analysis, which comprises conceptual understanding, drivers and barriers, functions outsourced, and firm performance. The study reveals that cost advantage, organisational learning, and the opportunity to concentrate on core business functions motivate the organisation to practice HRO. However, the lack of psychological contact among current employees, the risk of opportunism in the freelancing organisation, lack of management legislation, and prior experience are the common barriers to HRO adoption. Despite thesedrawbacks and barriers, recruitment, payroll processing, and technology-centric human resource (HR) activities are standard HR functions outsourced by organisations. The contributions of this study are to offer an integrated and conclusive definition of HRO and provide a simple, easy-to-understand, yet comprehensive framework for understanding HRO practices in any organisation. Researchers and academicians can utilize this paper to explore future research directions while gaining a thorough understanding of the HRO concept.

[Management Practice of Outsourcing Hospital Tests to Independent Clinical Laboratories].

With the development of medical technology and the deepening of medical reform, hospital laboratory test continues to expand. Affected by factors such as technology and cost, the business of outsourcing laboratory test to independent clinical laboratories develops rapidly. However, this cooperation mode has not been carried out for a long time and lacks systematic management experience. Through the analysis of the motivation of hospital delivery, this study expounds the classification, judgment basis and requirements for suppliers of third-party clinical laboratory delivery, as well as the operation practice of laboratory test delivery, so as to provide reference for more standardized and effective testing delivery for hospitals.

How does agricultural production outsourcing services affect chemical fertilizer use under topographic constraints: a farm-level analysis of China.

Agricultural production outsourcing services (APOS) are an important means to promote green and low-carbon development of agriculture in China. Topography is the key factor limiting the development of APOS. There is little research on the influence relationship between APOS and farmers' chemical fertilizer use from the perspective of topography. Based on the theory of economies of scale, this study empirically evaluated the effect of APOS on chemical fertilizer use and their differences from the perspective of nutrient elements under different topographic conditions by using micro survey data for farmers in China and econometric methods. The results show that APOS can reduce farmers' chemical fertilizer use, and this effect is more obvious for farmers with large farmland sizes and high education levels. Farmland topography directly affects the fertilizer reduction effect of APOS in China. Compared with plain areas, hilly and mountainous areas weaken this effect. To enhance the fertilizer reduction effect of APOS, China should fully consider farmland topography when promoting APOS development. In plain areas, farmland scale management should be further encourage to better utilize APOS as a means of reducing chemical fertilizer use. In hilly and mountainous areas, high-standard farmland construction and small agricultural machinery use can alleviate the constraints of topographical on the scale expansion of APOS. It is necessary to fully consider the differences in farmers' resource endowments and their awareness of purchasing agricultural services in promoting APOS development, especially in regard to the farmers with small farmland sizes and low education levels.

The cognitive tenacity of self-directed ageism.

Ageism refers to prejudice or discrimination based on a person's age. When ageism is directed at older people, it is unique in two ways: it is socially condoned in a manner that other types of prejudice are not, and the animus is eventually self-directed. Of central interest here is why ageism becomes self-directed in late adulthood, despite its potentially harmful personal costs. We present a cognitive model in which negative ageist beliefs become increasingly accessible and difficult to eliminate owing to broader developmental shifts in mentation. Given that these effects are contingent on our social environment, systemic changes in societal conceptions of age and aging are needed if we are to reduce vulnerability to self-directed ageism.

A sustainable smart production model for partial outsourcing and reworking.

Smart production plays a significant role to maintain good business terms among supply chain players in different situations. Adjustment in production uptime is possible because of the smart production system. The management may need to reduce production uptime to deliver products ontime. But, a decrement in production uptime reduces the projected production quantity. Then, the management uses a limited investment for pursuing possible alternatives to maintain production schedules and the quality of products. This present study develops a mathematical model for a smart production system with partial outsourcing and reworking. The market demand for the product is price dependent. The study aims to maximize the total profit of the production system. Even in a smart production system, defective production rate may be less but unavoidable. Those defective products are repairable. The model is solved by classical optimization. Results show that the application of a variable production rate of the smart production for variable market demand has a higher profit than a traditional production (52.65%) and constant demand (12.45%).

For-profit outsourcing and its effects on placement stability and locality for children in care in England, 2011-2022: A longitudinal ecological analysis.

BACKGROUND: The responsibility of local authorities in England to provide children in care with stable, local placements has become increasingly difficult due to the rising number of children in need of care and a shortage of available placements. It is unclear if the trend of outsourcing children's social care to private companies has exacerbated this challenge. This paper examines how the outsourcing of children's social care to the private market has influenced placement locality and long-term stability over time. METHODS: We created a novel dataset of multiple administrative data sources on the outsourcing, placement locality and stability, and characteristics of children in care between 2011 and 2022. We conducted time-series fixed-effects regression analysis of the impact of for-profit outsourcing on placement locality and stability from 2011 to 2022. RESULTS: Our fully adjusted models demonstrate that for-profit outsourcing is consistently associated with more children being placed outside their home local authority and greater placement instability. We found that an increase of 1 % point of for-profit outsourcing was associated with an average increase of 0.10 % points (95 % CI 0.02-0.17; p = 0.01) more children experiencing placement disruption, and 0.23 % points (95 % CI 0.15-0.30; p < 0.001) more children being placed outside their home local authority. We estimate that an additional 17,001 (95 % CI 9015-24,987) out-of-area placements can be attributed to increases in for-profit provision. DISCUSSION: Our analyses show that placement stability and distance have deteriorated or stagnated over the last decade, and that the local authorities that rely most on outsourcing have the highest rates of placement disruptions and out-of-area placements.

Analysis of human resources for health in Afghanistan.

Background: Despite large-scale investment in health service delivery outsourcing, few studies have examined human resources for health (HRH) in Afghanistan. Aims: To review the HRH situation of outsourced healthcare services in Afghanistan and evaluate nongovernment organization (NGO) investments in the health workforce. Methods: Two questionnaires were used for data collection. One gathered information about the characteristics of HRH in 2020 and the other collected budgetary data for 2017-2020 to analyse budget allocation and expenditure by NGOs on the health workforce. Results: A total of 25 262 (65% male, 35% female) individuals were employed by NGOs in 31 provinces of Afghanistan. There was a critical shortage of personnel and a prevalence of gender imbalance across all provinces. Healthcare workers were mostly aged 26 to 30 years. Services were mostly provided by local NGOs and their scopes were not limited to outsourced projects. More than 75% of the budget of NGOs was allocated to the health workforce in 2017-2020, and more than 70% of allocations was spent on staff salaries, followed by other health workforce expenditure. Less than 5% was spent on capacity building. Conclusion: There is a gross shortage and large gender imbalance in the Afghanistan health workforce. It is essential to maintain and increase current financial and technical investments to ensure sustainability and enhance the fragile health system in Afghanistan.

PP-DDP: a privacy-preserving outsourcing framework for solving the double digest problem.

BACKGROUND: As one of the fundamental problems in bioinformatics, the double digest problem (DDP) focuses on reordering genetic fragments in a proper sequence. Although many algorithms for dealing with the DDP problem were proposed during the past decades, it is believed that solving DDP is still very time-consuming work due to the strongly NP-completeness of DDP. However, none of these algorithms consider the privacy issue of the DDP data that contains critical business interests and is collected with days or even months of gel-electrophoresis experiments. Thus, the DDP data owners are reluctant to deploy the task of solving DDP over cloud. RESULTS: Our main motivation in this paper is to design a secure outsourcing computation framework for solving the DDP problem. We at first propose a privacy-preserving outsourcing framework for handling the DDP problem by using a cloud server; Then, to enable the cloud server to solve the DDP instances over ciphertexts, an order-preserving homomorphic index scheme (OPHI) is tailored from an order-preserving encryption scheme published at CCS 2012; And finally, our previous work on solving DDP problem, a quantum inspired genetic algorithm (QIGA), is merged into our outsourcing framework, with the supporting of the proposed OPHI scheme. Moreover, after the execution of QIGA at the cloud server side, the optimal solution, i.e. two mapping sequences, would be transferred publicly to the data owner. Security analysis shows that from these sequences, none can learn any information about the original DDP data. Performance analysis shows that the communication cost and the computational workload for both the client side and the server side are reasonable. In particular, our experiments show that PP-DDP can find optional solutions with a high success rate towards typical test DDP instances and random DDP instances, and PP-DDP takes less running time than DDmap, SK05 and GM12, while keeping the privacy of the original DDP data. CONCLUSION: The proposed outsourcing framework, PP-DDP, is secure and effective for solving the DDP problem.

On the Security of Offloading Post-Processing for Quantum Key Distribution.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) has been researched for almost four decades and is currently making its way to commercial applications. However, deployment of the technology at scale is challenging because of the very particular nature of QKD and its physical limitations. Among other issues, QKD is computationally intensive in the post-processing phase, and devices are therefore complex and power hungry, which leads to problems in certain application scenarios. In this work, we study the possibility to offload computationally intensive parts in the QKD post-processing stack in a secure way to untrusted hardware. We show how error correction can be securely offloaded for discrete-variable QKD to a single untrusted server and that the same method cannot be used for long-distance continuous-variable QKD. Furthermore, we analyze possibilities for multi-server protocols to be used for error correction and privacy amplification. Even in cases where it is not possible to offload to an external server, being able to delegate computation to untrusted hardware components on the device itself could improve the cost and certification effort for device manufacturers.