We propose an extended maintenance overtime policy for the cumulative damage model where an operating unit suffers some damage due to shocks. It is assumed that the total damage is additive, and the unit fails when the total damage has exceeded a prespecified damage level. It is supposed that we start to observe occurrence of shocks after time T, and the unit is replaced at Nth (N = 1, 2, ...) ...

Data from middle-aged civil servants in the Whitehall II Study suggest that working long hours of overtime may predispose workers to major depressive episodes.

BACKGROUND Primary human airway epithelial cells cultured in an air-liquid interface (ALI) develop a well-differentiated epithelium. However, neither characterization of mucociliar differentiation overtime nor the inflammatory function of reconstituted nasal polyp (NP) epithelia have been described. OBJECTIVES 1st) To develop and characterize the mucociliar differentiation overtime of human e...

OBJECTIVES We examine interactions among 3 factors that affect patient waits and use of overtime in outpatient clinics: clinic congestion, patient punctuality and physician processing rates. We hypothesise that the first 2 factors affect physician processing rates, and this adaptive physician behaviour serves to reduce waiting times and the use of overtime. SETTING 2 urban academic clinics an...

A central tenet of economics is that firms with lower costs are better able to meet their operating objectives, whether the goal be profit maximization or, in the case of non-profits, the provision of community service. Thus, any method that may achieve this goal is eagerly received. In health care, attention has recently been paid to the impact that nursing “shortages” have on the costs of hea...

BACKGROUND Despite concerns as to whether nurses can perform reliably and effectively when working longer shifts, a pattern of two 12- to 13-hour shifts per day is becoming common in many hospitals to reduce shift to shift handovers, staffing overlap, and hence costs. OBJECTIVES To describe shift patterns of European nurses and investigate whether shift length and working beyond contracted ho...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between duration of overtime and the development of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS A cohort of 1266 Japanese male office workers aged 35-59 years and free of IFG (fasting plasma glucose concentration 6.1-6.9 mmol/l), type 2 DM (fasting plasma glucose concentration of 7.0 mmol/l or more or taking hypoglycaemic m...