Search results for: discovery service

Authors: Dragan Zivotic, Mirjana Ilic, Aleksandra Perovic, Predrag Gavrilovic

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As with the provision of other services, the service quality perception is one of the key factors that the modern manager must pay attention to. Countries in which the state regulation is in transition also have specific features in providing fitness services. Identification of the dimensions in which the most significant different service quality perception between different types of fitness centers, enables managers to profile the offer according to the wishes and expectations of users. The aim of the paper was the comparison of the quality of services perception in the field of fitness in Serbia between three categories of fitness centers: the privately owned centers, the publicly owned centers, and the Public-private partnership centers. For this research 350 respondents of both genders (174 men and 176 women) were interviewed, aged between 18 and 68 years, being beneficiaries of fitness services for at least 1 year. Administered questionnaire with 100 items provided information about the 15 basic areas in which they expressed the service quality perception in the gym. The core sample was composed of 212 service users in private fitness centers, 69 service users in public fitness centers and 69 service users in the public-private partnership. Sub-samples were equal in representation of women and men, as well as by age and length of use of fitness services. The obtained results were subject of univariate analysis with the Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric analysis of variance. Significant differences between the analyzed sub-samples were not found solely in the areas of rapid response and quality outcomes. In the multivariate model, the results were processed by backward stepwise discriminant analysis that extracted 3 areas that maximize the differences between sub-samples: material and technical basis, secondary facilities and coaches. By applying the classification function 93.87% of private centers services users, 62.32% of public centers services users and 85.51% of the public-private partnership centers users of services were correctly classified (total 86.00%). These results allow optimizing the allocation of the necessary resources in profiling offers of a fitness center in order to optimally adjust it to the user’s needs and expectations.

Keywords: fitness, quality perception, management, public ownership, private ownership, public-private partnership, discriminative analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 293

Authors: Yared Yitagesu Tilahun

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Every nation, developed or developing, relies on transportation, but Addis Abeba City's transportation service is impacted by a number of variables. The current study's objectives are to determine the factors that influence transportation and gauge consumer satisfaction with such services in Addis Abeba. Customers and employees of Addis Ababa's transportation service authority would be the study's target group. 40 workers of the authority would be counted as part of the 310 000 clients that make up the population of the searcher service. Using a straightforward random selection technique, the researcher only chose 99 customers and 28 staff from this enormous group due to the considerable cost and time involved. Data gathering and analysis options included both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results of this poll show that young people between the ages of 18 and 25 make up the majority of respondents (51.6%). The majority of employees and customers indicated that they are not satisfied with Addis Ababa's overall transportation system. The Addis Abeba Transportation Authority prioritizes client happiness by providing fair service. The company should have a system in place for managing time, resources, and people effectively. It should also provide employees the opportunity to contribute to client handling policies.

Keywords: transportation, customer satisfaction, services, determinants

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: Nazeema Ahmed

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Mental health in higher education has received increasing attention over the past few decades. The high academic demands of the engineering degree, coupled with students’ mental health challenges, have led to higher education institutions offering psychotherapeutic services to students. This paper discusses an evaluation of the psychotherapy service at the University of Cape Town. The aim was to determine (i) the efficacy of the service; and (ii) the impact of race, gender, and language of the therapist on the students’ therapeutic process. An online survey was sent to 109 students who attended psychotherapy. The majority expressed favorable experiences of psychotherapy, with reports of increased capacity to engage with their academic work. Most students did not experience the gender, race, or language of the psychologists to be barriers to their therapy. The findings point to a need for ongoing psychological support for students.

Keywords: psychotherapy, efficacy, engineering, education

Procedia PDF Downloads 124

Authors: Surajit Bhattacharya, Daniel Veltri, Atit A. Patel, Daniel N. Cox

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miRNAs have emerged as key post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, however identification of biologically-relevant target genes for this epigenetic regulatory mechanism remains a significant challenge. To address this knowledge gap, we have developed a novel tool in R, Intra-miR-ExploreR, that facilitates integrated discovery of miRNA targets by incorporating target databases and novel target prediction algorithms, using statistical methods including Pearson and Distance Correlation on microarray data, to arrive at high confidence intragenic miRNA target predictions. We have explored the efficacy of this tool using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism for bioinformatics analyses and functional validation. A number of putative targets were obtained which were also validated using qRT-PCR analysis. Additional features of the tool include downloadable text files containing GO analysis from DAVID and Pubmed links of literature related to gene sets. Moreover, we are constructing interaction maps of intragenic miRNAs, using both micro array and RNA-seq data, focusing on neural tissues to uncover regulatory codes via which these molecules regulate gene expression to direct cellular development.

Keywords: miRNA, miRNA:mRNA target prediction, statistical methods, miRNA:mRNA interaction network

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Authors: Yuling Cui, Danhao Deng, Chaowei Wang, Weidong Wang

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In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used in wireless communication, attracting more and more attention from researchers. UAVs can not only serve as a relay for auxiliary communication but also serve as an aerial base station for ground users (GUs). However, limited energy means that they cannot work all the time and cover a limited range of services. In this paper, we investigate 2D UAV trajectory design and power allocation in order to maximize the UAV's service time and downlink throughput. Based on deep reinforcement learning, we propose a depth deterministic strategy gradient algorithm for trajectory design and power distribution (TDPA-DDPG) to solve the energy-efficient and communication service quality problem. The simulation results show that TDPA-DDPG can extend the service time of UAV as much as possible, improve the communication service quality, and realize the maximization of downlink throughput, which is significantly improved compared with existing methods.

Keywords: UAV trajectory design, power allocation, energy efficient, downlink throughput, deep reinforcement learning, DDPG

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Authors: Nur Azaliah Abu Bakar, Harihodin Selamat, Mohd Nazri Kama

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This article provides a systematic review of existing research related to the Service-oriented Enterprise Architecture (SoEA) adoption and maturity measurement model. The review’s main goals are to support research, to facilitate other researcher’s search for relevant studies and to propose areas for future studies within this area. In addition, this article provides useful information on SoEA adoption issues and its related maturity model, based on research-based knowledge. The review results suggest that motives, critical success factors (CSFs), implementation status and benefits are the most frequently studied areas and that each of these areas would benefit from further exposure.

Keywords: systematic literature review, service-oriented architecture, adoption, maturity model

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Authors: Reza Ferdousi, Reza Safdari, Yadollah Omidi

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Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are main cause of the adverse drug reactions and nature of the functional and molecular complexity of drugs behavior in human body make them hard to prevent and treat. With the aid of new technologies derived from mathematical and computational science the DDIs problems can be addressed with minimum cost and efforts. Market basket analysis is known as powerful method to identify co-occurrence of thing to discover patterns and frequency of the elements. In this research, we used market basket analysis to identify important bio-elements in DDIs occurrence. For this, we collected all known DDIs from DrugBank. The obtained data were analyzed by market basket analysis method. We investigated all drug-enzyme, drug-carrier, drug-transporter and drug-target associations. To determine the importance of the extracted bio-elements, extracted rules were evaluated in terms of confidence and support. Market basket analysis of the over 45,000 known DDIs reveals more than 300 important rules that can be used to identify DDIs, CYP 450 family were the most frequent shared bio-elements. We applied extracted rules over 2,000,000 unknown drug pairs that lead to discovery of more than 200,000 potential DDIs. Analysis of the underlying reason behind the DDI phenomena can help to predict and prevent DDI occurrence. Ranking of the extracted rules based on strangeness of them can be a supportive tool to predict the outcome of an unknown DDI.

Keywords: drug-drug interaction, market basket analysis, rule discovery, important bio-elements

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Authors: Azadeh Shahbazi

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This study tries to find out the determinants of capital structure in hotel industry in 7 important hotel chains in USA within the period of 12 years of 2000 to 2012. The study is used a panel pooled regression to realize the relation among different variables. Results show that the variables which could make changes in the capital structure of firms are Non-Debt Tax Shield and Tangibility.

Keywords: capital structure, service industry, hospitality, finance

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Authors: Lucy W. Mburu, Richard Karanja, Simon N. Mwendia

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Over recent years, learners have experienced a constant need to access on demand knowledge that is fully aligned with the paradigm of cloud computing. As motivated by the global sustainable development goal to ensure inclusive and equitable learning opportunities, this research has developed a framework hinged on the knowledge-as-a-service architecture that utilizes knowledge from ambient learning systems. Through statistical analysis and decision tree modeling, the study discovers influential variables for ambient learning among university students. The main aim is to generate a platform for disseminating and exploiting the available knowledge to aid the learning process and, thus, to improve educational support on the ambient learning system. The research further explores how collaborative effort can be used to form a knowledge network that allows access to heterogeneous sources of knowledge, which benefits knowledge consumers, such as the developers of ambient learning systems.

Keywords: actionable knowledge, ambient learning, cloud computing, decision trees, knowledge as a service

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Authors: Kai-Cheng Hsu, Tzu-Ying Sung, Jinn-Moon Yang

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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the main causes of cancer death in the world. Although several drugs have been developed to treat colorectal cancer, such as Regorafenib and 5-FU, their efficacy is often limited by the development of drug resistance. Therefore, development of new drugs with new scaffolds is necessary to treat CRC. Here, we used site-moiety maps to identify inhibitors against PIM1, LIMK1, SRC, and mTOR, which are often overexpressed in CRC. A site-moiety map represents physicochemical properties and moiety preferences of a binding site through anchors. An anchor contains three elements: (1) conserved interacting residues of a binding pocket; (2) moiety preference of the binding pocket; and (3) the type (e.g., hydrogen-bonding or van der Waals interactions) of interaction between the moieties and the binding pocket. Then, we performed a structure-based virtual screening of ~260,000 compounds and selected compound candidates with high site-moiety map scores for bioassays. Among these candidates, compound 1 and compound 2 inhibited the growth of CRC cells with IC50 values of <10 μM. The experimental result of enzyme-based assays indicated that compound 1 is a dual inhibitor against PIM1 (IC50 6 μM) and LIMK1(IC50 11 μM). Compound 2 was predicted as a SRC inhibitor and will be further validated. The compounds inhibited different protein targets compared to the current drugs. We believe that the compounds provide a starting point to design new drugs for CRC treatment.

Keywords: colorectal cancer, drug discovery, site-moiety map, virtual screening, PIM1, LIMK1

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Authors: Martina Marinelli, Samanta Vellante, Francesco Pilotti, Daniele Di Valerio, Gaetanino Paolone

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Any development in web marketing technology requires changes in information engineering to identify instruments and techniques suitable for the production of software applications for informative marketing. Moreover, for large web solutions, designing an interface that enables human interactions is a complex process that must bridge between informative marketing requirements and the developed solution. A user-friendly interface in web marketing applications is crucial for a successful business. The paper introduces mkInfo - a software platform that implements informative marketing. Informative marketing is a new interpretation of marketing which places the information at the center of every marketing action. The creative team includes software engineering researchers who have recently authored an article on automatic code generation. The authors have created the mkInfo software platform to generate informative marketing web applications. For each web application, it is possible to automatically implement an opt in page, a landing page, a sales page, and a thank you page: one only needs to insert the content. mkInfo implements an autoresponder to send mail according to a predetermined schedule. The mkInfo platform also includes e-commerce for a product or service. The stakeholder can access any opt-in page and get basic information about a product or service. If he wants to know more, he will need to provide an e-mail address to access a landing page that will generate an e-mail sequence. It will provide him with complete information about the product or the service. From this point on, the stakeholder becomes a user and is now able to purchase the product or related services through the mkInfo platform. This paper suggests a possible definition for Informative Marketing, illustrates its basic principles, and finally details the mkInfo platform that implements it. This paper also offers some Informative Marketing models, which are implemented in the mkInfo platform. Informative marketing can be applied to products or services. It is necessary to realize a web application for each product or service. The mkInfo platform enables the product or the service producer to send information concerning a specific product or service to all stakeholders. In conclusion, the technical contributions of this paper are: a different interpretation of marketing based on information; a modular architecture for web applications, particularly for one with standard features such as information storage, exchange, and delivery; multiple models to implement informative marketing; a software platform enabling the implementation of such models in a web application. Future research aims to enable stakeholders to provide information about a product or a service so that the information gathered about a product or a service includes both the producer’s and the stakeholders' point of view. The purpose is to create an all-inclusive management system of the knowledge regarding a specific product or service: a system that includes everything about the product or service and is able to address even unexpected questions.

Keywords: informative marketing, opt in page, software platform, web application

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Authors: Elizabeth D. Ramos

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Peace education supports a holistic appreciation for the value of life and the interdependence of all living systems. Peace education aims to build a culture of peace. One way of building a culture of peace is through environmental stewardship. This study sought to find out the environmental stewardship practices in selected Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines and how these environmental stewardship practices lead to building a culture of peace. The findings revealed that there is still room for improvement in implementing environmental stewardship in schools through academic service learning. In addition, the following manifestations are implemented very satisfactorily in schools: 1) waste reduction, reuse, and recycling, 2) community service, 3) clean and green surroundings. Administrators of schools in the study lead their staff and students in implementing environmental stewardship. It could be concluded that those involved in environmental stewardship display an acceptable culture of peace, particularly, solidarity, respect for persons, and inner peace.

Keywords: academic service learning, environmental stewardship, leadership support, peace, solidarity

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Authors: Hafsat Iyabo Sa'adu

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A salient feature of the Nigerian Tax Law is the right of the taxpayer to demand for a refund where excess tax is paid. Section 23 of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, 2007 vests Federal Inland Revenue Services with the power to make tax refund as well as set guidelines and requirements for refund process from time to time. In addition, Section 61 of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, 2007, empowers the Federal Inland Revenue Services to issue information circular to acquaint stakeholders with the policy on the refund process. A Circular was issued to that effect to correct the position that until after the annual audit of the Service before such excess can be paid to the claimant/taxpayer. But it is amazing that such circular issuance does not feature under the states’ laws. Hence, there is an inconsistencies in the tax paying system in Nigeria. This study, therefore, sets an objective, to examine the trending concept of tax refund in Nigeria. In order to achieve this set objective, a doctrinal study went under way, wherein both federal and states laws were consulted including journals and textbooks. At the end of the research, it was revealed that the law should be specific as to the time frame within which to make the refund. It further revealed that it is essential to put up a legal framework for the tax system to recognize excess payment as debt due from the state. This would provide a foundational framework for the relationship between taxpayers and Federal Inland Revenue Service as well as promote effective tax administration in all the states of the federation. Several Recommendations were made especially relating to legislative passage of ‘’Refund Circular Bill at the states levels’ pursuant to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, 2007.

Keywords: claim, Nigeria, refund, right

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Authors: Neda Seyyedi, Reza Berangi

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Voice over IP (VOIP) network, also known as Internet telephony, is growing increasingly having occupied a large part of the communications market. With the growth of each technology, the related security issues become of particular importance. Taking advantage of this technology in different environments with numerous features put at our disposal, there arises an increasing need to address the security threats. Being IP-based and playing a signaling role in VOIP networks, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) lets the invaders use weaknesses of the protocol to disable VOIP service. One of the most important threats is denial of service attack, a branch of which in this article we have discussed as flooding attacks. These attacks make server resources wasted and deprive it from delivering service to authorized users. Distributed denial of service attacks and attacks with a low rate can mislead many attack detection mechanisms. In this paper, we introduce a mechanism which not only detects distributed denial of service attacks and low rate attacks, but can also identify the attackers accurately. We detect and prevent flooding attacks in SIP protocol using Shannon (FDP-S), Renyi (FDP-R) and Tsallis (FDP-T) entropy. We conducted an experiment to compare the percentage of detection and rate of false alarm messages using any of the Shannon, Renyi and Tsallis entropy as a measure of disorder. Implementation results show that, according to the parametric nature of the Renyi and Tsallis entropy, by changing the parameters, different detection percentages and false alarm rates will be gained with the possibility to adjust the sensitivity of the detection mechanism.

Keywords: VOIP networks, flooding attacks, entropy, computer networks

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Authors: A. Oliveira-Brochado, R. Silva, C. Paulino

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The aim of this paper is to use an experiential view of wine tourism to develop a battery of items that can potentially capture the overall Douro Valley experience from the tourist’s perspective. The Douro Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage region located in Portugal, was the target of this study. The research took a mixed approach using both qualitative and quantitative designs. Firstly, we combine the literature review on service quality scales with a content analysis of five in-depth interviews with winery managers and a focus group with wine tourists to identify the main dimensions of the overall tourism experience and to develop a battery of items for each dimension. Eight dimensions of the overall wine tourism experience came out, as follows: winery service and staff, winery facilities, winery service, wine product, wine region environment, wine region accessibilities, wine region´s offerings, and the wine region and winery reputation.

Keywords: wine tourism, Douro region, survey, wineries, experience

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Authors: Jia Yin Tan, Daniel Rambei, Kate Mann, Samuel price, Ahmed Aboelela

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Introduction: Breastfeeding is a complex process, influenced by various factors. Tongue-tie may lead to breastfeeding difficulties due to an inability to suck effectively, causing sore nipples and poor infant weight gain. In the UK, most frenotomies on infants are performed by doctors, nurses, health visitors or midwives. Objectives: Evaluation of safety and efficacy of a multispecialty nurse-led rapid access tongue-tie service at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, run jointly by the ENT and paediatric surgery departments. Methodology: A retrospective observational study, including all patients attending the ENT and paediatric surgery nurse-led tongue tie clinics between 1/10/2021 and 30/09/2022. Results: During the study period there were 1135 referrals for frenotomy, with a mean of 15 days between referral to clinic episode. 86.8% of referred patients underwent frenotomy, with a complication rate of 0.1% and revision rate of 5.4%. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that our rapid access nurse-led outpatient tongue tie service is safe and efficacious, with low complication and revision rates. This suggests a potential for developing a community-based service, allowing safe and effective care closer to home.

Keywords: tongue tie, frenotomy, cost, nurse-led

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Authors: Fidiana Suwitho

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Research and community service is one of important lecturer assignment in Indonesia. This article was made to meet those needs by assisting home industry entrepreneurs of various chips in Banyuwangi. Community service in this scheme are intended to increase the revenue of craftsmen of chips by improving value added of chips through food engineering technology. Ibu Anisa has produced various kinds of chips that are breadfruit chips, banana chips, yam chips, and cassava chips. In business development, Ibu Anisa facing various problems both in terms of production and management aspects. The process of production and management and marketing are still conventional so that increased demand cannot be offset by production capacity. A researcher team of STIESIA has assist partners in the processing stage, from manually to the technologically. This activity has a positive impact to However, this process has not been reached on sustainable marketing aspect, which is where the partners are still difficult to reach a wider market because of limited access.

Keywords: food engineering technology, value added of chips, community service

Procedia PDF Downloads 274

Authors: Nathaniel Carpenter

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Web-enabled systems for supporting youth mental health management in Australia are pioneering in their field; however, with their success, these systems are experiencing exponential growth in demand which is straining an already stretched service. Supporting youth mental is critical as the lack of support is associated with significant and lasting negative consequences. To meet this growing demand, and provide critical support, investigations are needed on evaluating and improving existing online support services. Improvements should focus on developing frameworks capable of augmenting and scaling service provisions. There are few investigations informing best-practice frameworks when implementing e-mental health support systems for youth mental health; there are fewer which implement machine learning or artificially intelligent systems to facilitate the delivering of services. This investigation will use a case study methodology to highlight the design features which are important for systems to enable young people to self-manage their mental health. The investigation will also highlight the current information system challenges, to include challenges associated with service quality, provisioning, and scaling. This work will propose methods of meeting these challenges through improved design, service augmentation and automation, service quality, and through artificially intelligent inspired solutions. The results of this study will inform a framework for supporting youth mental health with intelligent and scalable web-enabled technologies to support an ever-growing user base.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, information systems, machine learning, youth mental health

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Authors: Lundqvist M., Alwin J., Levin L-A.

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Background: Assistance dogs are dogs trained to assist persons with functional impairment or chronic diseases. The assistance dog concept includes different types: guide dogs, hearing dogs, and service dogs. The service dog can further be divided into subgroups of physical services dogs, diabetes alert dogs, and seizure alert dogs. To examine the long-term effects of health care interventions, both in terms of resource use and health outcomes, cost-effectiveness analyses can be conducted. This analysis can provide important input to decision-makers when setting priorities. Little is known when it comes to the cost-effectiveness of assistance dogs. The study aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of certified service or hearing dogs in comparison to regular companion dogs. Methods: The main data source for the analysis was the “service and hearing dog project”. It was a longitudinal interventional study with a pre-post design that incorporated fifty-five owners and their dogs. Data on all relevant costs affected by the use of a service dog such as; municipal services, health care costs, costs of sick leave, and costs of informal care were collected. Health-related quality of life was measured with the standardized instrument EQ-5D-3L. A decision-analytic Markov model was constructed to conduct the cost-effectiveness analysis. Outcomes were estimated over a 10-year time horizon. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio expressed as cost per gained quality-adjusted life year was the primary outcome. The analysis employed a societal perspective. Results: The result of the cost-effectiveness analysis showed that compared to a regular companion dog, a certified dog is cost-effective with both lower total costs [-32,000 USD] and more quality-adjusted life-years [0.17]. Also, we will present subgroup results analyzing the cost-effectiveness of physicals service dogs and diabetes alert dogs. Conclusions: The study shows that a certified dog is cost-effective in comparison with a regular companion dog for individuals with functional impairments or chronic diseases. Analyses of uncertainty imply that further studies are needed.

Keywords: service dogs, hearing dogs, health economics, Markov model, quality-adjusted, life years

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Authors: Yosika Dian Komala, Uke Kurniawan Usman, Yuyun Siti Rohmah

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The enable technology fills up needs of high-speed data service is Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS). UMTS has a data rate up to 2Mbps.UMTS terrestrial system has a coverage area about 1-2km. High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) can be built by a macro cell that is able to serve the wider area. Design method of UMTS using HAPS is planning base on coverage and capacity. The planning method is simulated with 2.8.1 Atoll’s software. Determination of radius of the cell based on the coverage uses free space loss propagation model. While the capacity planning to determine the average cell through put is available with the Offered Bit Quantity (OBQ).

Keywords: UMTS, HAPS, coverage planning, capacity planning, signal level, Ec/Io, overlapping zone, throughput

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Authors: O. V. Jurieva, O. U. Jurieva, R. H. Yagudin, P. B. Chursin

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In the recent scientific researches on the problems of public service the idea of the use of innovative technologies of management of personnel processes is accurately formulated. Authors made an attempt to analyze the changes in the public service organizations and to understand how the studied situation is interpreted by the government employees themselves. For this purpose the strategy of sociological research was carried out on the basis of application of questionnaire developed by M. Rokich and focus group research. For the research purposes it was necessary to get to microlevel in order to include daily activities of employees of an organization, their life experience and values in the focus of the analysis. Based on P. Bourdieu's methodology, authors investigated the established patterns of consciousness and behavior of officials (doxa) and also analyzed the tendencies of re-thinking (change) of the settled content of values (heterodoxy) by them. The distinctive feature of the conducted research is that the public servants who have different length of service in the public service took part in the research procedure. The obtained data helped to answer the following question: what are the specifics of doxs of the public servants who work in the public civil service more than 7-10 years and what perception of values of civil service have junior experts whose work experience doesn't exceed 3 years. Respondents were presented by two groups: (1) public servants of the level of main positions in the public civil service of the Republic of Tatarstan. (2) Public servants of the level of lower positions in the ministries and departments of the Republic of Tatarstan. For the study of doxa or of the existing values of public servants, the research with use of the questionnaire based on M. Rokich's system is conducted. Two types of values are emphasised: terminal and instrumental, which are united by us in the collective concept doxa. Doxa: the instrument of research of the established patterns of consciousness and behavior which can either resist to changes in the organization or, on the contrary, support their implementation. In the following stage an attempt to deepen our understanding of the essence and specifics of doxa of officials by means of the applied sociological research which is carried out by focus group method is made. Information obtained by authors during the research convinces that for the success of policy of changes in the organizations of public service it is necessary to develop special technologies of informing employees about the essence and inevitability of the developed innovations, to involve them in the process of changes, to train and to develop the younger generation of civil servants, seriously to perceive additional training and retraining of officials.

Keywords: innovative technologies, public service organizations, public servants

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Authors: Abiodun Ezekiel Adesina, Alice M. Olagunju

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This study determined the effects of Computer Assisted Instructions (CAI) and Academic Self-Concepts (ASC) on pre-service teachers’ achievement in AE concepts in CoE in Southwest, Nigeria. The study adopted pretest-posttest, control group, quasi-experimental design. Six CoE with e-library facilities were purposively selected. Two hundred and thirty-two intact 200 level Agricultural education students offering introduction to AE course across the six CoE were participants. The participants were assigned to three groups (D&PM, 77, TM, 73 and control, 82). Treatment lasted eight weeks. The AE achievement test (r=0.76), pre-service teachers’ ASC Scale (r=0.81); instructional guides for tutorial (r=0.76), drill and practice (r=0.81) and conventional lecture modes (r=0.83), and teacher performance assessment sheet were used for data collection. Data were analysed using analysis of covariance and Scheffe post-hoc at 0.05 level of significance. The participants were 55.6% female with mean age of 20.8 years. Treatment had significant main effects on pre-service teachers’ achievement (F(2,207)=60.52; η²=0.21; p < 0.05). Participants in D&PM (x̄ =27.83) had the best achievement compared to those in TM (x̄ =25.41) and control (x̄ =18.64) groups. ASC had significant main effect on pre-service teachers’ achievement (F(1,207)=22.011; η²=0.166; p < 0.05). Participants with high ASC (x̄ =27.52) had better achievement compared to those with low ASC (x̄ =22.37). The drill and practice and tutorial instructional modes enhanced students’ achievement in Agricultural Economics concepts. Therefore, the two instructional modes should be adopted for improved learning outcomes in agricultural economics concepts among pre-service teachers.

Keywords: achievement in agricultural economics concepts, colleges of education in southwestern Nigeria, computer-assisted instruction, drill and practice instructional mode, tutorial instructional mode

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Authors: Ammatu Alhassan

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Quality healthcare delivery is a crucial indicator in assessing the overall developmental status of a country. There are many limitations in the Ghanaian healthcare supply chain due to the lack of studies about the correlation between quality health service and the healthcare supply chain. Patients who visit various healthcare providers face unpleasant experiences such as delays in the availability of their medications. In this study, an assessment of the quality of services provided to Ghanaian outpatients who visit public healthcare providers was investigated to establish its effect on the healthcare supply chain using a conceptual model. The Donabedian’s structure, process, and outcome theory for service quality evaluation were used to analyse 20 Ghanaian hospitals. The data obtained was tested using the structural equation model (SEM). The findings from this research will help us to improve the overall quality of the Ghanaian healthcare supply chain. The model which will be developed will help us to understand better the linkage between quality healthcare and the healthcare supply chain as well as serving as a reference tool for future healthcare research in Ghana.

Keywords: Ghana, healthcare, outpatients, supply chain

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Authors: Joseph E. Hummer

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An efficient freeway system will be essential to the development of Africa, and interchanges are a key to that efficiency. Around the world, many interchanges between freeways and surface streets, called service interchanges, are of the diamond configuration, and interchanges using roundabouts or loop ramps are also popular. However, many diamond interchanges have serious operational problems, interchanges with roundabouts fail at high demand levels, and loops use lots of expensive land. Newer service interchange designs provide other options. The most popular new interchange design in the US at the moment is the double crossover diamond (DCD), also known as the diverging diamond. The DCD has enormous potential, but also has several significant limitations. The objectives of this paper are to review new service interchange options and to highlight some of the main features of those alternatives. The paper tests four conventional and seven unconventional designs using seven measures related to efficiency, cost, and safety. The results show that there is no superior design in all measures investigated. The DCD is better than most designs tested on most measures examined. However, the DCD was only superior to all other designs for bridge width. The DCD performed relatively poorly for capacity and for serving pedestrians. Based on the results, African freeway designers are encouraged to investigate the full range of alternatives that could work at the spot of interest. Diamonds and DCDs have their niches, but some of the other designs investigated could be optimum at some spots.

Keywords: interchange, diamond, diverging diamond, capacity, safety, cost

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Authors: Somayeh Abedian, Pirhossein Kolivand, Hamid Reza Lornejad, Amin Karampour, Ebrahim Keshavarz Safari

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For emergency and relief service providers such as pre-hospital emergencies, quick arrival at the scene of an accident or any EMS mission is one of the most important requirements of effective service delivery. Response time (the interval between the time of the call and the time of arrival on scene) is a critical factor in determining the quality of pre-hospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS). This is especially important for heart attack, stroke, or accident patients. Location-based e-services can be broadly defined as any service that provides information pertinent to the current location of an active mobile handset or precise address of landline phone call at a specific time window, regardless of the underlying delivery technology used to convey the information. According to research, one of the effective methods of meeting this goal is determining the location of the caller via the cooperation of landline and mobile phone operators in the country. The follow-up of the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) organization has resulted in the receipt of two separate secured electronic web services. Thus, to ensure human privacy, a secure technical architecture was required for launching the services in the pre-hospital EMS information management system. In addition, to quicken medics’ arrival at the patient's bedside, rescue vehicles should make use of an intelligent transportation system to estimate road traffic using a GPS-based mobile navigation system independent of the Internet. This paper seeks to illustrate the architecture of the practical national model used by the Iranian EMS organization.

Keywords: response time, geographic location inquiry service (GLIS), location-based service (LBS), emergency medical services information system (EMSIS)

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Authors: Isabel Latz, Mark Lusk, Josiah Heyman

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The rise of restrictive U.S. immigration policies and their strengthened enforcement has reportedly caused concerns among providers about their inadvertent effects on service utilization among Latinx and immigrant communities. This study presents perceptions on this issue from twenty service providers in health care, mental health, nutrition assistance, legal assistance, and immigrant advocacy in El Paso, Texas. All participants were experienced professionals, with fifteen in CEO, COO, executive director, or equivalent positions, and based at organizations that provide services for immigrant and/or low-income populations in a bi-national border community. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected by two primary investigators via semi-structured telephone interviews with an average length of 20 minutes. A survey script with closed and open-ended questions inquired about participants’ demographic information and perceptions of impacts of immigration enforcement policies under the current federal administration on their work and patient or client populations. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to produce descriptive statistics and identify salient themes, respectively. Nearly all respondents stated that their work has been negatively (N=13) or both positively and negatively (N=5) affected by current immigration enforcement policies. Negative effects were most commonly related to immigration enforcement-related fear and uncertainty among patient or client populations. Positive effects most frequently referred to a sense of increased community organizing and greater cooperation among organizations. Similarly, the majority of service providers either reported an increase (N=8) or decrease (N=6) in service utilization due to changes in immigration enforcement policies. Increased service needs were primarily related to a need for public education about immigration enforcement policy changes, information about how new policies impact individuals’ service eligibility, legal status, and civil rights, as well as a need to correct misinformation. Decreased service utilization was primarily related to fear-related service avoidance. While providers observed changes in service utilization among undocumented immigrants and mixed-immigration status families, in particular, participants also noted ‘spillover’ effects on the larger Latinx community, including legal permanent and temporary residents, refugees or asylum seekers, and U.S. citizens. This study reveals preliminary insights into providers’ widespread concerns about the effects of current immigration enforcement policies on health, social, and legal service utilization among Latinx individuals. Further research is necessary to comprehensively assess impacts of immigration enforcement policies on service utilization in Latinx and immigrant communities. This information is critical to address gaps in service utilization and prevent an exacerbation of health disparities among Latinx, immigrant, and border populations. In a global climate of rising nationalism and xenophobia, it is critical for policymakers to be aware of the consequences of immigration enforcement policies on the utilization of essential services to protect the well-being of minority and immigrant communities.

Keywords: immigration enforcement, immigration policy, provider perceptions, service utilization

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Authors: O. Y. Yurieva, O. V. Yurieva, O. V. Kiselkina, A. V. Kamaseva

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Since the early 2000s, there are some innovative changes in the civil service in Russia due to administrative reform. Perspectives of the reform of the civil service include a fundamental change in the personnel component, increasing the level of professionalism of officials, increasing their capacity for self-organization and self-regulation. In order to achieve this, the civil service must be able to continuously change. Organizational changes have long become the subject of scientific understanding; problems of research in the field of organizational change is presented by topics focused on the study of the methodological aspects of the implementation of the changes, the specifics of changes in different types of organizations (business, government, and so on), design changes in the organization, including based on the change in organizational culture. In this case, the organizational changes in the civil service are the least studied areas; research of problems of its transformation is carried out in fragments. According to the theory of resistance of Herbert Simon, the root of the opposition and rejection of change is in the person who will resist any change, if it threatens to undermine the degree of satisfaction as a member of the organization (regardless of the reasons for this change). Thus, the condition for successful adaptation to changes in the organization is the ability of its staff to perceive innovation. As part of the problem, the study sought to identify the innovation civil servants, to determine readiness for the development of proposals for the implementation of organizational change in the public service. To identify the relationship to organizational changes case study carried out by the method of "Attitudes to organizational change" of I. Motovilina, which allowed predicting the type of resistance to changes, to reveal the contradictions and hidden results. The advantage of the method of I. Motovilina is its brevity, simplicity, the analysis of the responses to each question, the use of "overlapping" issues potentially conflicting factors. Based on the study made by the authors, it was found that respondents have a positive attitude to change more local than those that take place in reality, such as "increase opportunities for professional growth", "increase the requirements for the level of professionalism of", "the emergence of possible manifestations initiatives from below". Implemented by the authors diagnostics related to organizational changes in the public service showed the presence of specific problem areas, with roots in the lack of understanding of the importance of innovation personnel in the process of bureaucratization of innovation in public service organizations.

Keywords: innovative changes, self-organization, self-regulation, civil service

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Authors: Rebecca K. Blais, Lindsey Monteith, Hallie Tannahill

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Military sexual trauma (MST) includes sexual harassment or assault that occurred during military service. Studies conducted to date on the association of MST with mental health and suicide outcomes are generally circumscribed to either active duty or veteran samples, precluding a thorough analysis of developmental trajectories of distress following MST within the context of ongoing (vs. discharged from) military service. The Military Social Science Laboratory has collected data on mixed service samples of men and women service members, addressing this important literature gap. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of MST, suicide risk, PTSD, depression, alcohol use, and posttraumatic cognitions using two separate samples, which collectively allow for a comprehensive examination of the development of distress following MST. The first sample consisted of 1389 men and women service members and veterans with varying levels of MST severity, including no MST, harassment-only MST, and assault MST. The second sample consisted of 400 men and women service members, all reporting the highest severity of MST, assault MST. In both samples, roughly half reported being discharged from service. Participants completed self-report measures of MST exposure severity, suicide ideation, suicide risk, PTSD, depression, alcohol misuse, and posttraumatic cognitions, as well as perceptions of how the military responded to their MST. Relative to those still serving in the US military, veterans were more likely to endorse suicidal ideation, higher PTSD symptoms, and higher depression symptoms if they felt the military mishandled their experience of MST (referred to as perceived institutional betrayal). However, among those reporting the most severe MST, veterans reported lower alcohol misuse and more adaptive posttraumatic cognitions. These findings suggest that those separated from the military experience different posttraumatic aftermath following MST relative to those who are currently serving in the military. Such findings suggest critical differences in the developmental trajectory of distress, necessitating different interventions to successfully reduce distress and dysfunction. Additional analyses will explore the impact of gender on these associations and explore full mechanistic models of distress grouped by discharged status.

Keywords: military sexual trauma, PTSD, suicide, developmental trajectories, depression

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Authors: Michael Bach

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Extensive weld repair was carried out in 2009 after a leak was detected in the aluminum 5052 vessel of the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor. This was the second vessel installed since 1974. In support of the NRU vessel leak repair and fitness for service assessments, an estimate of property changes due to irradiation exposure is required to extend the service of the reactor until 2018. In order to fully evaluate the property changes in the vessel wall, an Iodine-125 rod (I rod) made from the same material and irradiated in the NRU reactor from 1974 1991, was retrieved and sectioned for microstructure characterization and mechanical testing. The different sections of the I rod were exposed to various levels of thermal neutron fluences from 0 to a maximum of 11.9 x 1022 n/cm2. The end of life thermal neutron fluence of the NRU vessel is estimated to be 2.2 x 1022 n/cm2 at 35 years of service. Tensile test and fracture toughness test was performed on the I-rod material at various axial locations. The changes in tensile properties were attributed primarily to the creation of finely dispersed Mg-Si precipitates that harden the material and reduced the ductility. Despite having a reduction in fracture toughness, the NRU vessel is still operation at the current fluence levels.

Keywords: aluminum alloy, fitness-for-service assessment , fracutre toughness, nuclear reactor, precipitate strengthening, radiation damage, tensile strength

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Authors: S. Chebbi, A. Meddeb

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The distribution networks are often exposed to harmful incidents which can halt the electricity supply of the customer. In this context, we studied a real case of a critical zone of the Tunisian network which is currently characterized by the dysfunction of its plan of protection. In this paper, we were interested in the harmonization of the protection plan settings in order to ensure a perfect selectivity and a better continuity of service on the whole of the network.

Keywords: distribution network Gabes-Tunisia, continuity of service, protection plan settings, selectivity

Procedia PDF Downloads 510