The reader is presented an approach to the construction of a visual system, which is behaviorally, computationally and neurally motivated. The central goal is to characterize the process of visual categorization and to find a suitable representation format that can successfully deal with the structural variability existent within visual categories. It does not define such representations a priori but attempts to show directions on how to gradually work towards them. The book reviews past and existent theories of visual object and shape recognition in the fields of computer vision, neuroscience and psychology. The entire range of computations is discussed, as for example contour extraction in retinal circuits, orientation determination in cortical networks, position and scale independence of shape, as well as the issue of object and shape representation in a neural substrate. Region-based approaches are discussed and are modeled with wave-propagating networks. It is demonstrated how those networks operate on gray-scale images. A completely novel shape recognition architecture is proposed that can recognize simple shapes under various degraded conditions. It is discussed how such networks can be used for constructing basic-level object representations. It is envisioned how those networks can be implemented using the method of neuromorphic engineering, an analog electronic hardware substrate than can run neural computations in real-time and with little power.

This book demonstrates how to successfully manage and lead healthcare institutions by employing the logic of business model innovation to gain competitive advantages. Since clerk-like routines in professional organizations tend to overlook patient and service-centered healthcare solutions, it challenges the view that competition and collaboration in the healthcare sector should not only incorporate single-end services, therapies or diagnosis related groups. Moreover, the authors focus on holistic business models, which place greater emphasis on customer needs and put customers and patients first. The holistic business models approach addresses topics such as business operations, competitiveness, strategic business objectives, opportunities and threats, critical success factors and key performance indicators.The contributions cover various aspects of service business innovation such as reconfiguring the hospital business model in healthcare delivery, essential characteristics of service business model innovation in healthcare, guided business modeling and analysis for business professionals, patient-driven service delivery models in healthcare, and continuous and co-creative business model creation. All of the contributions introduce business models and strategies, process innovations, and toolkits that can be applied at the managerial level, ensuring the book will be of interest to healthcare professionals, hospital managers and consultants, as well as scholars, whose focus is on improving value-generating and competitive business architectures in the healthcare sector.

This book examines the nature of service design and service thinking in healthcare and hospital management. By adopting both a service-based provider perspective and a consumer-oriented perspective, the book highlights various healthcare services, methods and tools that are desirable for customers and effective for healthcare providers. In addition, readers will learn about new research directions, as well as strategies and innovations to develop service solutions that are affordable, sustainable, and consumer-oriented. Lastly, the book discusses policy options to improve the service delivery process and customer satisfaction in the healthcare and hospital sector. The contributors cover various aspects and fields of application of service design and service thinking, including service design processes, tools and methods; service blueprints and service delivery; creation and implementation of services; interaction design and user experience; design of service touchpoints and service interfaces; service excellence and service innovation. The book will appeal to all scholars and practitioners in the hospital and healthcare sector who are interested in organizational development, service business model innovation, customer involvement and perceptions, and service experience.

This book demonstrates how to successfully manage and lead healthcare institutions by employing the logic of business model innovation to gain competitive advantages. Since clerk-like routines in professional organizations tend to overlook patient and service-centered healthcare solutions, it challenges the view that competition and collaboration in the healthcare sector should not only incorporate single-end services, therapies or diagnosis related groups. Moreover, the authors focus on holistic business models, which place greater emphasis on customer needs and put customers and patients first. The holistic business models approach addresses topics such as business operations, competitiveness, strategic business objectives, opportunities and threats, critical success factors and key performance indicators.The contributions cover various aspects of service business innovation such as reconfiguring the hospital business model in healthcare delivery, essential characteristics of service business model innovation in healthcare, guided business modeling and analysis for business professionals, patient-driven service delivery models in healthcare, and continuous and co-creative business model creation. All of the contributions introduce business models and strategies, process innovations, and toolkits that can be applied at the managerial level, ensuring the book will be of interest to healthcare professionals, hospital managers and consultants, as well as scholars, whose focus is on improving value-generating and competitive business architectures in the healthcare sector.

Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris Italiamfato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora. This is the beginning of Ovid's story about Odysseus leaving Trojae to find his way home. I here tell about my own Odysee-like ex- riences that I have undergone when I attempted to simulate visual recognition. The Odyssee started with a structural description - tempt, then continued with region encoding with wave propagation and may possibly continue with a mixture of several shape descr- tion methods. Although my odyssey is still under its way I have made enough progress to convey the gist of my approach and to compare it to other vision systems. My driving intuition is that visual category representations need to be loose in order to be able to cope with the visual structural va- ability existent within categories and that these loose representations are somehow expressed as neural activity in the nervous system. I - gard such loose representations as the cause for experiencing visual illusions and the cause for many of those effects discovered in att- tional experiments. During my effort to find such loose represen- tions, I have made sometimes unexpected experiences that forced me to continuously rethink my approach and to abandon or turn over some of my initially strongly believed viewpoints.

This book offers an overview of service design practices for healthcare and hospital management. It explores how these practices can help to generate innovations in healthcare and contribute to the improvement of patient-centered care. Respected experts, including scholars from various disciplines and practitioners from healthcare institutions, share essential insights into established research areas, fields of work and work structures, and discuss successful approaches, methods and tools. By illustrating innovative services, products, processes, systems, and technologies, as well as their application in practice, the authors highlight the role of participating stakeholders in service design projects and the added value that comes from sharing, communicating, networking and collaborating. This book is a must-read for scholars and practitioners in the hospital and healthcare sector. It will also appeal to anyone interested in organizational development, service business model innovation, customer involvement and perceptions, and service experience.

This book offers an overview of service design practices for healthcare and hospital management. It explores how these practices can help to generate innovations in healthcare and contribute to the improvement of patient-centered care. Respected experts, including scholars from various disciplines and practitioners from healthcare institutions, share essential insights into established research areas, fields of work and work structures, and discuss successful approaches, methods and tools. By illustrating innovative services, products, processes, systems, and technologies, as well as their application in practice, the authors highlight the role of participating stakeholders in service design projects and the added value that comes from sharing, communicating, networking and collaborating. This book is a must-read for scholars and practitioners in the hospital and healthcare sector. It will also appeal to anyone interested in organizational development, service business model innovation, customer involvement and perceptions, and service experience.

Hanno Schmidt-Gothan kombiniert moderne und aktuelle Ansatze aus der betriebswirtschaftlichen Forschung in einen Gesamtrahmen zum Erkennen, Vermeiden und Bewaltigen von Unternehmenskrisen sowie zum langfristigen Wertmanagement. Anhand einer umfangreichen Studie mit mehr als 40 erfolgreich sanierten Unternehmen im deutschsprachigen Raum werden die Erfolgfaktoren fur Sanierungen identifiziert und wertvolle Handlungsempfehlungen fur Unternehmensfuhrer geliefert.

Heike Surrey fuhrt Erkenntnisse der Lern-, der Personal- und der strategischen Managementforschung zusammen und erarbeitet ein Konzept fur ein professionelles Lernmanagement. Im Fokus steht die Analyse erfolgskritischer Lernfahigkeiten in unterschiedlichen Unternehmensentwicklungsphasen. Anhand von funf Bausteinen entwickelt sie Managementhilfen zur individuellen und flexiblen Gestaltung von Lernprozessen in Unternehmen."

Alexander Zobel begreift die multifokale Unternehmensfuhrung als managementseitige Antwort auf den pluralistischen und mehrdimensionalen Wettbewerb (unterschiedliche Aggregationsstufen, Wettbewerbsobjekte und Interaktionsformen), wobei Agilitat den Mitarbeitern hohe Management- und Leadershipkompetenzen verleiht.

Philipp Kinzler erarbeitet vier neue strategische Archetypen diversifizierter Unternehmungen und Handlungsempfehlungen fur ihr erfolgreiches Management anhand der Parameter Portfoliomanagement, Organisation und Unternehmensverfassung.

Christoph Rasche zeigt, dass die teilweise stilisierenden Pramissen des strategischen Managements unter Bedingungen von Hyperdynamik und Unsicherheit um die realitatsnaheren Annahmen des multifokalen Managements erganzt werden sollten.

Das Buch relativiert den Aussagewert eher industrieokonomisch beeinflusster Management-Konzeptionen und vergleicht sie mit der ressourcenorientierten Unternehmensfuhrung. Daraus ergeben sich Implikationen fur die strategische Unternehmensfuhrung."

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Unternehmensberatungen stellen mit ihrem Leistungsportfolio einen bedeutenden Wirtschaftsfaktor dar. Die digitale Transformation und die sehr spezifischen Marktstrukturen der Gesundheitswirtschaft verlangen nach differenzierten Beratungsansatzen, die zugleich ein grosses Beratungsfeld eroeffnen und so das Wachstum und die Attraktivitat von Unternehmensberatungen in diesem Segment starken. Das Buch zeigt Themenfelder und Erfolgsfaktoren bei Beratungsprojekten auf. Dabei wird der Ansatz der Komplementarberatung in den Mittelpunkt gestellt, um den vielfaltigen Change-Anforderungen bei der digitalen Transformation im Gesundheitswesen ganzheitlich gerecht zu werden. Beratungsprojekte lassen sich in Meilensteine unterteilen, um Projektfortschritte zu dokumentieren. Durch Massnahmen und den Einsatz von etablierten Methoden lassen sich festgelegte Ziele beim Beratungsgeschaft erreichen. Die Beitrage in diesem Buch prasentieren zahlreiche Umsetzungsbeispiele aus konkreten Beratungsprojekten in der Gesundheitsbranche, die Beratern, Geschaftsfuhrern, Top-Managern und anderen Entscheidungstragern praktische Hilfestellungen und Inspirationen bieten.

Dieser Sammelband befasst sich mit den Phasen des Grundungsprozesses, dem Unternehmertum und dem Markteintritt von Produkten und Dienstleistungen im Gesundheitswesen. Unternehmensgrundungen werden entscheidend beeinflusst durch die gesetzten Rahmenbedingungen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen in einem System. Ein tragfahiges Unternehmenskonzept ist genauso wichtig wie ein Management-, Marketing-, Finanzierungs- und Investitionsplan und eine gesicherte Investitionssumme, die in der Grundungsphase eines Unternehmens vorhanden sein muss, damit die Unternehmensgrundung erfolgen kann. Die Autoren aus Wissenschaft und Praxis erlautern anhand von zahlreichen Beispielen die wesentlichen Erfolgsfaktoren fur den Erfolg bei der Unternehmensgrundung im Gesundheitsbereich.

Unternehmertum im Gesundheitswesen ist gepragt durch Grunderpersoenlichkeiten, die sich einbringen und durch neue Innovationen dazu beitragen, die Bedurfnisse von Kunden zu befriedigen. Die effiziente Nutzung von Ressourcen ist neben der systematischen Entwicklung von innovativen Geschaftsmodellen entscheidend fur den Erfolg. Die Beitrage in diesem Sammelband beschaftigen sich mit dem Grundertum im Bereich der digitalen Transformation und der Entwicklungsphase zu einem innovativen Unternehmen im Gesundheitsmarkt. Unternehmerisches Denken von der Grundung bis zur Umsetzung und unternehmerischen Exzellenz wird analysiert und anhand von Fallbeispielen eroertert. Der Sammelband ist durch die Vielzahl an praktischen Beispielen von besonderem Interesse fur Praktiker und Wissenschaftler.

Das vorliegende Buch gibt einen profunden Einblick uber das Forschungsgebiet gesundheitsorientierter Dienstleistungen und deren Management im Krankenhaus. Die Erbringung von Dienstleistungen ist im Krankenhauswesen mit hohen Kosten verbunden. Eine grosse Herausforderung besteht darin die Qualitat im Dienstleistungsprozess zu erhoehen, ohne dass dies parallel mit exponentiell steigenden Ressourcenverbrauchen einhergeht. Das Dienstleistungsmanagement ubernimmt hierbei die Planung, Durchfuhrung und Kontrolle von Massnahmen zur Erstellung und Vermarktung wissensbasierter Dienstleistungen im Rahmen typischer Expertenorganisationen. Aufgezeigt werden Beispiele fur komplexe, innovative, standardisierte, modulare, wissensintensive und interaktive Dienstleistungen. In den einzelnen Beitragen werden aktuelle Dienstleistungsthemen von renommierten Autoren aufgegriffen, um nachhaltig die Dienstleistungsproduktivitat in Krankenhausern zu steigern und zu verbessern. Von besonderem Interesse ist der Sammelband daher sowohl fur Praktiker als auch fur Wissenschaftler.