Search results for: long-term services and supports

Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah, Jianing Mi, Cheng Feng

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The patronage of e-government services (demand side of e-government) is vital to the successful implementation of e-government initiatives. The purpose of this study is to explore the predictors determining the willingness of African students in China to adopt and use e-government services. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) will be used as the theoretical foundation for this research. Research instrument will be developed and administered to 500 African students in China. Factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and culture will be investigated to determine its significant impact on the willingness to use e-government services. This study is a research in progress. The outcome of this study will provide valuable recommendations to improve the provision of public services through e-government.

Keywords: e-government, e-government services, predictors, UTAUT

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Authors: Adisak Guntida

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Propylene self-metathesis to ethylene and butene was studied over WOx/SiO2 catalysts at 450 °C and atmospheric pressure. The WOx/SiO2 catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation of ammonium metatungstate aqueous solution. It was found that, adding nano-sized extra supports (SiO2 and TiO2) by physical mixing with the WOx/SiO2 enhanced propylene conversion. The UV-Vis and FT-Raman results revealed that WOx could migrate from the original silica support to the extra support, leading to a better dispersion of WOx. The ICP-OES results also indicate that WOx existed on the extra support. Coke formation was investigated on the catalysts after 10 h time-on-stream by TPO. However, adding nano-sized extra supports led to higher coke formation which may be related to acidity as characterized by NH3-TPD.

Keywords: extra support, nanomaterial, propylene self-metathesis, tungsten oxide

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Authors: Elkington Sibusiso Mnguni

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Although South Africa has made good progress in providing basic water and sanitation services to its citizens, there is still a large section of the population that has no access to these services. This paper reviews the performance of the government’s municipal infrastructure grant programme in providing basic water and sanitation services which are part of the constitutional requirements to the citizens. The method used to gather data and information was a desk top study which sought to review the progress made in rolling out the programme. The successes and challenges were highlighted and possible solutions were identified that can accelerate the elimination of the remaining backlogs and improve the level of service to the citizens. Currently, approximately 6.5 million citizens are without access to basic water services and approximately 10 million are without access to basic sanitation services.

Keywords: grant, municipal infrastructure, sanitation, services, water

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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Public sector organizations, ministries, departments and local government agencies are adopting e-government as a means to provide efficient and quality service delivery to citizens. The purpose of this research paper is to examine the extent to which perceived usefulness (PU) of e-government services moderates between perceived ease-of-use (PEOU) of e-government services and intention to use (IU) e-government services in Ghana. A structured research questionnaire instrument was developed and administered to 700 potential respondents in Ghana, of which 693 responded, representing 99% of the questionnaires distributed. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to capture and analyze the data. The results indicate that even though predictors such as PU and PEOU are main determiners of citizens’ intention to adopt and use e-government services in Ghana, it failed to show that PEOU and IU e-government services in Ghana is significantly moderated by the PU of e-government services. The implication of this finding on theory and practice is further discussed.

Keywords: e-government services, intention to use, moderating role, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, Ghana, technology acceptance model

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Authors: Rajiv Kumar, Amit Sachan, Arindam Mukherjee

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Government agencies around the world, including India, are incorporating digital technologies and processes into their day-to-day operations to become more efficient. Despite low internet penetration (around 34.8% of total population) in India, Government of India has made some public services mandatory to access online (e.g. passport, tax filing).This is insisting citizens to access mandatory public services online. However, due to digital divide, all citizens do not have equal access to internet. In light of this, it is an interesting topic to explore how citizens are able to access mandatory online public services. It is important to understand how citizens are adopting these mandatory e-government services and how the adoption behavior of these mandatory e-government services is different or similar to adoption behavior of non-mandatory e-government services. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors that influence adoption of mandatory and non-mandatory e-government services in India. A quantitative technique is employed in this study. A conceptual model has been proposed by integrating the influencing factors to adopt e-government services from previous studies. The proposed conceptual model highlights a comprehensive set of potential factors influencing the adoption of e-government services. The proposed model has been validated by keeping in view the local context of Indian society. Online and paper based survey was administered, collected data was analyzed and results have been discussed. A total of 463 valid responses were received and further the responses were analyzed. The research reveals that the influencing factors to adopt e-government services are not same for both mandatory and non-mandatory e-government services. There are some factors that influence adoption of both mandatory and non-mandatory e-government services but there are some which are relevant for either of mandatory and non-mandatory e-government services. The research findings may help government or concerned agencies in successfully implementing e-government services.

Keywords: adoption, e-government, India, mandatory, non-mandatory

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Authors: Jenjira Chinnawong, Phusit Phukamchanoad

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The objective of this study is to explore the guidelines for the development of community classroom for research and academic services in Ranong province. By interviewing leaders involved in the development of learning resources, research, and community services, it was found that the leaders' perceptions in the development of learning resources, research, and community services in Ranong, was at the highest level. They perceived at every step on policies of community classroom implementation, research, and community services in Ranong. Leaders' perceptions were at the moderate level in terms of analysis of problems related to procedures of community classroom management, research and community services in Ranong especially in the planning and implementation of the examination, improvement, and development of learning sources to be in good condition and ready to serve the visitors. Their participation in the development of community classroom, research, and community services in Ranong was at a high level, particularly in the participation in monitoring and evaluation of the development of learning resources as well as in reporting on the result of the development of learning resources. The most important thing in the development of community classroom, research and community services in Ranong is the necessity to integrate the three principles of knowledge building in teaching, research and academic services in order to create the identity of the local and community classroom for those who are interested to visit to learn more about the useful knowledge. As a result, community classroom, research, and community services were well-known both inside and outside the university.

Keywords: community classroom, learning resources, development, participation

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Authors: Nadia Fatima Zahra Malki

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Quality is one of the most important modern management patterns that organizations seek to achieve in all areas and sectors in order to meet the needs and desires of customers and to remain and continuity, as they constitute a competitive advantage for the organization. and among the most prominent organizations that must be available on the quality factor are health organizations as they relate to the most valuable component of production. It is a person, and his health, and any error in it threatens his life and may lead to death, so she must provide health services of high quality to achieve the highest degree of satisfaction for the patient. This research aims to study the quality of health services and the extent of their impact on patient satisfaction, and this is through an applied study that relied on measuring the level of quality of health services in the university hospital center of Algeria and the extent of their impact on patient satisfaction according to the dimensions of the quality of health services, and we reached a conclusion that the determinants of the quality of health services It affects patient satisfaction, which necessitates developing health services according to patients' requirements and improving their quality to obtain patient satisfaction.

Keywords: health service, health quality, quality determinants, patient satisfaction

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Authors: Muyatdinova Aigul, Aitkaliyeva Madina

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The article deals with the evaluation of the quality of medical services on the basis of quality indicators. For this purpose allocated initially the features of the medical services market. The Features of the market directly affect on the evaluation process that takes a multi-level and multi-stakeholder nature. Unlike ordinary goods market assessment of medical services does not only market. Such an assessment is complemented by continuous internal and external evaluation, including experts and accrediting bodies. In the article highlighted the composition of indicators for a comprehensive evaluation

Keywords: health care market, quality of health services, indicators of care quality

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Authors: Akram Atef Rawshdeh

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This research aims to prove the role of Islamic pilgrimage caravans in formulating the concept of the tourism industry and the concept of Grand Tours before that which was found in Europe in the medieval and modern Ages, through its duration and the number of tourists who participated in it and its role in providing tourism services from the establishment of castles and inns that were built To accommodate pilgrims during their travels from different regions of the Islamic world to the holy places in Saudi Arabia, as well as food and beverage services, transportation and support services like tourist security and tourist guide services. This research will depend on the historical method

Keywords: grand tour, hajj caravan routes, tourism services, transportation

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Authors: Anan Alssbaiheen, Steve Love

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Given the lack of research into potential opportunities and challenges which are likely to be associated with the implementation of mobile services in developing countries including Saudi Arabia, the research reported here investigated the challenges and opportunities which are associated with the implementation of mobile government services in Saudi Arabia. By collecting data through surveys from 103 Saudi citizens and 46 employees working at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology Saudi Arabia, this study indicates that the high level of mobile penetration in the country offers an opportunity for Saudi Arabian government to offer mobile government services in the country. The results also suggest that though a large percentage of populations do not have access to mobile technologies, there is still a strong desire among users for the provision of mobile government services. Moreover, the results suggest that effective implementation of mobile government services would help to increase the technological development of Saudi Arabia. However, there are certain challenges which may prevent the effective implementation of such services. First, there does not appear to be a sufficient level of understanding among the Saudi Arabian population about the benefits which are associated with mobile government services. Secondly, the results suggest that the implementation of the services needs to be closely tailored and personalised to the individual needs of target users. Finally, the lack of access to mobile technologies would be a challenge to the successful introduction of these services.

Keywords: challenges, e-government, mobile government, opportunities

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Authors: Phatthanan Chaiyabut

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The purposes of this research were to identify the perception of customers towards Krung Thai Bank’s image and to understand the customer attitude towards Krung Thai Bank’s image in Bangkok, Thailand. This research utilized quantitative approach and used questionnaire as data collection tool. A sample size of 420 respondents was selected by simple random sampling. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents received information, news, and feeds concerning the bank through televisions the most. This information channel had significantly influenced on the customers and their decisions to utilize the bank’s products and services. From the information concerning the attitudes towards overall image of the bank, it was found that the majority respondents rated the bank’s image at the good level. The top three average attitudes included the bank’s images in supports government's monetary policies, being renowned and stable, and contributing in economical amendments and developments, with the mean average of 4.01, 3.96 and 3.81 respectively. The attitudes toward the images included a business leader in banking, marketing, and competitions. Offering prompt services, and provided appropriate servicing time were rated moderate with the attitudes of 3.36 and 3.30 respectively.

Keywords: attitude, image, Krung Thai Bank, perception

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Authors: Scott N. Gerard, Aliza Heching, Susann M. Keohane, Samuel S. Adams

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The world-wide population of people over 60 years of age is growing rapidly. The explosion is placing increasingly onerous demands on individual families, multiple industries and entire countries. Current, human-intensive approaches to eldercare are not sustainable, but IoT and AI technologies can help. The Knowledge Reactor (KR) is a contextual, data fusion engine built to address this and other similar problems. It fuses and centralizes IoT and System of Record/Engagement data into a reactive knowledge graph. Cognitive applications and services are constructed with its multiagent architecture. The KR can scale-up and scaledown, because it exploits container-based, horizontally scalable services for graph store (JanusGraph) and pub-sub (Kafka) technologies. While the KR can be applied to many domains that require IoT and AI technologies, this paper describes how the KR specifically supports the challenging domain of cognitive eldercare. Rule- and machine learning-based analytics infer activities of daily living from IoT sensor readings. KR scalability, adaptability, flexibility and usability are demonstrated.

Keywords: ambient sensing, AI, artificial intelligence, eldercare, IoT, internet of things, knowledge graph

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Authors: Maryam Amiri, Leyli Mohammad-Khanli

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Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular and more business applications are moving to cloud. In this regard, services that provide similar functional properties are increasing. So, the ability to select a service with the best non-functional properties, corresponding to the user preference, is necessary for the user. This paper presents an Evaluation Framework of Service Trustworthiness (EFST) that evaluates the trustworthiness of equivalent services without need to additional invocations of them. EFST extracts user preference automatically. Then, it assesses trustworthiness of services in two dimensions of qualitative and quantitative metrics based on the experiences of past usage of services. Finally, EFST determines the overall trustworthiness of services using Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). The results of experiments and simulations show that EFST is able to predict the missing values of Quality of Service (QoS) better than other competing approaches. Also, it propels users to select the most appropriate services.

Keywords: user preference, cloud service, trustworthiness, QoS metrics, prediction

Procedia PDF Downloads 258

Authors: Malki Nadia Fatima Zahra, Kellal Chaimaa, Brahimi Houria

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Quality is one of the most important modern management patterns that organizations seek to achieve in all areas and sectors in order to meet the needs and desires of customers and to remain continuity, as they constitute a competitive advantage for the organization, and among the most prominent organizations that must be available on the quality factor are health organizations as they relate to the most valuable component of production It is a person and his health, and that any error in it threatens his life and may lead to death, so she must provide health services of high quality to achieve the highest degree of satisfaction for the patient. This research aims to study the quality of health services and the extent of their impact on patient satisfaction, and this is through an applied study that relied on measuring the level of quality of health services in the university hospital center of Algeria and the extent of their impact on patient satisfaction according to the dimensions of the quality of health services, and we reached a conclusion that the determinants of the quality of health services. It affects patient satisfaction, which necessitates developing health services according to patients' requirements and improving their quality to obtain patient satisfaction.

Keywords: health service, health quality, quality determinants, patient satisfaction

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Authors: Rasha Alhendawi

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This research will give the introductory ideas for cultural adaption of B2C E-Service design in Germany. By the intense competition of E-Service development, many companies have realized the importance of understanding the emotional and cultural characteristics of their customers. Ignoring customers’ needs and requirements throughout the E-Service design can lead to faults, mistakes, and gaps. The term of E-Service usability now is changed not only to develop high quality E-Services, but also to be extended to include customer satisfaction and provide for them to feel local.

Keywords: human computer interaction (HCI), usability, cultural usability, E-Services, business-to-consumer (B2C), e-services

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Authors: Marissa C. Esperal

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This university-based research project attempted to determine the relevance and effectiveness of the technology-based psychological services extended to selected adults experiencing symptoms of mild anxiety and depression. Ninety-seven participants who voluntarily availed the free online psychological services advertised through a Facebook page (Techno-Psych Serv) signed up for the Informed Consent and Psychological Services Contract Agreement form. These clients availed a maximum of 5 online sessions devoted to online assessment, online counseling and brief therapy sessions using the Google Meet App. Participants who, upon evaluation, were found to still be needing extended psychological and other services were referred to other mental health services institutions. Post-evaluations were conducted using Google Forms upon termination. Findings showed that with a mean of 4.87 (n=97), it was noted that the services provided through the online platform were effective. However, it was noted that the majority of those who availed the services were professionals and skilled workers, thus defeating the objective of extending free psychological services to the marginalized group. It was concluded that offering free technology-based psychological services, though proven effective, is found to be less relevant if the intention is to reach out to the less fortunate and marginalized group. It was further concluded that there is still a need for psychoeducation and mental health promotion among the marginalized sectors. It was recommended that if mental health services are extended to the community of marginalized group, providing physical services are still a better option.

Keywords: technology-based psychological services, adults, mild anxiety, depression

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Authors: Mercy Marimirofa, Farai Machinga, Alfred Zvoushe, Tsitsidzaishe Musvosvi

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The Government of Zimbabwe embarked on integrating family planning with Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) services in May 2020 with support from the World Health Organization (WHO). There was high HIV prevalence, incidence rates and STI infections among women attending FP clinics. Spilhaus is a specialized center of excellence clinic which offers a range of sexual reproductive health services. HIV services were limited to testing only, and clients were referred to other facilities for further management. Integration of services requires that all the services be available at one point so that clients will access them during their visit to the facility. Objectives: The study was conducted to assess the impact the one-stop-shop model has made in accessing integrated Family Planning services and sexual reproductive health services compared to the supermarket approach. It also assessed the relationship family planning services have with other sexual reproductive health services. Methods: A secondary data analysis was conducted at Spilhaus clinic in Harare using family planning registers and HIV services registers comparing years 2019 and 2021. A 2 sample t-test was used to determine the difference in clients accessing the services under the two models. A Spearman’s rank correlation was used to determine if accessing family planning services has a relationship with other sexual reproductive health services. Results: In 2019, 7,548 clients visited the Spilhaus clinic compared to 8,265 during the period January to December 2021. The median age for all clients accessing services was 32 years. An increase of 69% in the number of services accessed was recorded from 2019 to 2021. More services were accessed in 2021. There was no difference in the number of clients accessing family planning services cervical cancer, and HIV services. A difference was found in the number of clients who were offered STI screening services. There was also a relationship between accessing family planning services and STI screening services (ρ = 0.729, p-value=0.006). Conclusion: Programming towards SRH services was a great achievement, the use of an integrated approach proved to be cost-effective as it minimised the required resources for separate programs. Clients accessed important health needs at once. The integration of these services provided an opportunity to offer comprehensive information which addressed an individual’s sexual reproductive health needs.

Keywords: intergration, one stop shop, family planning, reproductive health

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Authors: Angie Al Habib, Khalid Al Siyabi

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To measure or asses any government’s efficiency we need to measure the performance of this government in regards to the quality of the service it provides. Using a technological platform in service provision became a trend and a public demand. It is also a public need to make sure these services are aligned to values and to the whole government’s strategy, vision and goals as well. Providing services using technology tools and channels can enhance the internal business process and also help establish many essential values to government services like transparency and excellence, since in order to establish e-services many standards and policies must be put in place to enable the handing over of decision making to a mature system oriented mechanism. There was no doubt that the Sultanate of Oman wanted to enhance its services and move it towards automation and establishes a smart government as well as links its services to life events. Measuring government efficiency is very essential in achieving social security and economic growth, since it can provide a clear dashboard of all projects and improvements. Based on this data we can improve the strategies and align the country goals to them.

Keywords: government, maturity, Oman, performance, service

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Authors: Samah Benmerbi, Kamal Amroun, Abdelkamel Tari

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The increasing number of Web service (WS)providers throughout the globe, have produced numerous Web services providing the same or similar functionality. Therefore, there is a need of tools developing the best answer of queries by selecting and composing services with total transparency. This paper reviews various QoS based Web service selection mechanisms and architectures which facilitate qualitatively optimal selection, in other fact Web service composition is required when a request cannot be fulfilled by a single web service. In such cases, it is preferable to integrate existing web services to satisfy user’s request. We introduce an automatic Web service composition method based on hypergraph decomposition using hypertree decomposition method. The problem of selection and the composition of the web services is transformed into a resolution in a hypertree by exploring the relations of dependency between web services to get composite web service via employing an execution order of WS satisfying global request.

Keywords: web service, web service selection, web service composition, QoS, hypergraph decomposition, BE hypergraph decomposition, hypertree resolution

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Authors: T. Nakpun, T. Kanjanarach, T. Kittisopee

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Turnover of community pharmacist can affect continuity of patient care and most importantly the quality of care and also the costs of a pharmacy. It was hypothesized that organizational resources, job characteristics, and social supports had direct effect on pharmacist turnover intention, and indirect effect on pharmacist turnover intention via pharmacist engagement. This research aimed to study influencing factors on pharmacist engagement and pharmacist turnover intention by testing the proposed structural hypothesized model to explain the relationship among organizational resources, job characteristics, and social supports that effect on pharmacist turnover intention and pharmacist engagement in Thai community pharmacists. A cross sectional study design with self-administered questionnaire was conducted in 209 Thai community pharmacists. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling technique with analysis of a moment structures AMOS program. The final model showed that only organizational resources had significant negative direct effect on pharmacist turnover intention (β =-0.45). Job characteristics and social supports had significant positive relationship with pharmacist engagement (β = 0.44, and 0.55 respectively). Pharmacist engagement had significant negative relationship with pharmacist turnover intention (β = - 0.24). Thus, job characteristics and social supports had significant negative indirect effect on turnover intention via pharmacist engagement (β =-0.11 and -0.13, respectively). The model fit the data well (χ2/ degree of freedom (DF) = 2.12, the goodness of fit index (GFI)=0.89, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.94 and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07). This study can be concluded that organizational resources were the most important factor because it had direct effect on pharmacist turnover intention. Job characteristics and social supports were also help decrease pharmacist turnover intention via pharmacist engagement.

Keywords: community pharmacist, influencing factor, turnover intention, work engagement

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Authors: Ahmed F. Abdel Qader

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Viral marketing has resulted in a lot of excitement recently as a novel technology in the field of marketing. The need of porting institutions to attract new customers for sporting products and services has increased, especially as many international and Arab clubs rely on them for most of their funding. These organizations, especially clubs, have outlets for selling their products and services; therefore, they are in need for new approaches that are related to modern communication and innovative distribution methods that can depend on the present audience in conveying e-ads to other users in light of the increase in social media users in the Arab world. This study aims at developing a marketing plan for sporting products and services through viral marketing of social media users. The researcher used the descriptive method. The sample consisted of 1991 social media users in 13 Arab countries. The questionnaire consisted of five themes and 42 items. Allan Dib 'one-page marketing plan' was used to develop the sporting products and services marketing plan. The study found that participants reported watching e-ads of sporting products and services that appeared during browsing social media pages; Facebook was the most used means for receiving ads about sporting products and services; sharing the product’s ad depends on the availability of incentives; purchasing sporting products and services takes place after a recommendation by a relative or a friend; and their evaluation of sporting products and services depends on the experiences of other people. The study recommends that the proposed plan should be used in marketing sporting products and services.

Keywords: viral marketing, sporting products, social media, Arab world

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Authors: S. Toufigh Bararpour, Amir H. Soleimanisalim, Davood Karami, Nader Mahinpey

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The continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is expected to have great impacts on the climate. In order to reduce CO2 emission to the atmosphere, an efficient and cost-effective technique is required. Using regenerable solid sorbents, especially K2CO3 is a promising method for low-temperature CO2 capture. Pure K2CO3 is a delinquent substance that requires modifications before it can be used for cyclic operations. For this purpose, various types of additives and supports have been used to improve the structure of K2CO3. However, hydrophilicity and reactivity of the support materials with K2CO3 have a negative effect on the CO2 capture capacity of the sorbents. In this research, two kinds of alumina supports (γ-Alumina and Boehmite) were used. In order to decrease the supports' hydrophilicity and reactivity with K2CO3, nonreactive additives such as Titania, Zirconia and Silisium were incorporated into their structures. These materials provide a shell around the alumina to protect it from undesirable reactions and improve its properties. K2CO3-based core/shell-supported sorbents were fabricated using two preparation steps. The sol-gel method was applied for shelling the supports. Then the shelled supports were impregnated on K2CO3. The physicochemical properties of the sorbents were determined using SEM and BET analyses, and their CO2 capture capacity was quantified using a thermogravimetric analyzer. It was shown that type of the shell's material had an important effect on the water adsorption capacity of the sorbents. Supported K2CO3 modified by Titania shell showed the lowest hydrophilicity among the prepared samples. Based on the obtained results, incorporating nonreactive additives in Boehmite had an outstanding impact on the CO2 capture performance of the sorbent. Incorporation of Titania into the Boehmite-supported K2CO3 enhanced its CO2 capture capacity significantly. Therefore, further study of this novel fabrication technique is highly recommended. In the second phase of this research project, the CO2 capture performance of the sorbents in fixed and fluidized bed reactors will be investigated.

Keywords: CO₂ capture, core/shell support, K₂CO₃, post-combustion

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Authors: A. Shooshtari, A. R. Masoodi, S. Heyrani Moghaddam

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Free vibration analysis of a gabled frame with elastic support and semi-rigid connections is performed by using a program in OpenSees software. Natural frequencies and mode shape details of frame are obtained for two states, which are semi-rigid connections and elastic supports, separately. The members of this structure are analyzed as a prismatic nonlinear beam-column element in software. The mass of structure is considered as two equal lumped masses at the head of two columns in horizontal and vertical directions. Note that the degree of freedom, allocated to all nodes, is equal to three. Furthermore, the mode shapes of frame are achieved. Conclusively, the effects of connections and supports flexibility on the natural frequencies and mode shapes of structure are investigated.

Keywords: natural frequency, mode shape, gabled frame, semi-rigid connection, elastic support, OpenSees software

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Authors: Hajer Taktak, Faouzi Moussa

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With the ubiquitous computing’s emergence and the evolution of enterprises’ needs, one of the main challenges is to build context-aware applications based on Web services. These applications have become particularly relevant in the pervasive computing domain. In this paper, we introduce our approach that optimizes the use of Web services with context notions when dealing with contextual environments. We focus particularly on making Web services autonomous and natively context-aware. We implement and evaluate the proposed approach with a pedagogical example of a context-aware Web service treating temperature values. 

Keywords: context-aware, CXF framework, ubiquitous computing, web service

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Authors: Suzanne L. Stewart, Sarah J. Ponton, Mikaela D. Gabriel, Roy Strebel, Xinyi Lu

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Indigenous Peoples have faced unique barriers to accessing and receiving culturally safe and appropriate mental health care while also facing daunting rates of mental health diagnoses and comorbidities. Indigenous researchers and clinicians have well established the connection of the current mental health issues in Indigenous communities as a direct result of colonization by way of intergenerational trauma throughout Canada’s colonial history. Such mental health barriers and challenges have become exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, access to mental health, cultural, ceremonial, and community services were severely impacted and restricted; however, it is these same cultural activities and community resources that are key to supporting Indigenous mental health from a traditional and community-based perspective. This research employed a unique combination of a thorough, analytical scoping review of the existent mental health literature of Indigenous mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside narrative interviews employing an oral storytelling tradition methodology with key community informants that provide comprehensive cultural services to the Indigenous community of Toronto, as well as across Canada. These key informant interviews provided a wealth of insights into virtual transitions of Indigenous care and mental health support; intersections of historical underfunding and current financial navigation in technology infrastructure; accessibility and connection with Indigenous youth in remote locations; as well as maintaining community involvement and traditional practices in a current pandemic. Both the scoping review and narrative interviews were meticulously analyzed for overarching narrative themes to best explore the extent of the literature on Indigenous mental health and services during COVID-19; identify gaps in this literature; identify barriers and supports for the Indigenous community, and explore the intersection of community and cultural impacts to mental health. Themes of the scoping review included: Historical Context; Challenges in Culturally-Based Services; and Strengths in Culturally-Based Services. Meta themes across narrative interviews included: Virtual Transitions; Financial Support for Indigenous Services; Health Service Delivery & Wellbeing; and Culture & Community Connection. The results of this scoping review and narrative interviews provide wide application and contribution to the mental health literature, as well as recommendations for policy, service provision, autonomy in Indigenous health and wellbeing, and crucial insights into the present and enduring mental health needs of Indigenous Peoples throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: indigenous community services, indigenous mental health, indigenous scoping review, indigenous peoples and Covid-19

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Authors: Stefanie Jeanette Huber

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This paper explores the relevance and implications of preferences for housing services on house price fluctuations through the lens of an overlapping generation’s model. The model implies that an economy whose agents have lower preferences for housing services is characterized with lower expenditure shares on housing services and will tend to experience more frequent and more volatile housing bubbles. These model predictions are tested empirically in the companion paper Housing Booms and Busts - Convergences and Divergences across OECD countries. Between 1970 - 2013, countries who spend less on housing services as a share of total income experienced significantly more housing cycles and the associated housing boom-bust cycles were more violent. Finally, the model is used to study the impact of rental subsidies and help-to-buy schemes on rational housing bubbles. Rental subsidies are found to contribute to the control of housing bubbles, whereas help-to- buy scheme makes the economy more bubble-prone.

Keywords: housing bubbles, housing booms and busts, preference for housing services, expenditure shares for housing services, rental and purchase subsidies

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Authors: Mohammad Ba’azm

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The self-referentiality method as the missing ring of the Qur’an by Qur’an’s interpretation has a precise application at the level of the Quranic vocabulary, but after entering the domain of the verses, chapters and the whole Qur’an, it reveals its defect. Self-referentiality cannot show the clear concept of the Quranic scriptures, unlike the Qur’an by Qur’an’s interpretation method that guides us to the comprehension and exact hermeneutics. The Qur’an by Qur’an’s interpretation is a solid way of comprehension of the verses of the Qur'an and does not use external resources to provide implications and meanings with different theoretical and practical supports. In this method, theoretical supports are based on the basics and modalities that support and validate the legitimacy and validity of the interpretive method discussed, and the practical supports also relate to the practitioners of the religious elite. The combination of these two methods illustrates the exact understanding of the Qur'an at the level of Quranic verses, chapters, and the whole Qur’an. This study by examining the word 'book' in the Qur'an shows the difference between the two methods, and the necessity of attachment of these, in order to attain a desirable level for comprehensions meaning of the Qur'an. In this article, we have proven that by aspects of the meaning of the Quranic words, we cannot say any word has an exact meaning.

Keywords: Qur’an’s hermeneutic, self-referentiality, The Qur’an by Qur’an’s Interpretation, polysemy

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Authors: Saqib Rasool, Adnan N. Mian

Abstract:

Web components are introduced as the latest standard of HTML5 for writing modular web interfaces for ensuring maintainability through the isolated scope of web components. Reusability can also be achieved by sharing plug-and-play web components that can be used as off-the-shelf components by other developers. A web component encapsulates all the required HTML, CSS and JavaScript code as a standalone package which must be imported for integrating a web component within an existing web interface. It is then followed by the integration of web component with the web services for dynamically populating its content. Since web components are reusable as off-the-shelf components, these must be equipped with some mechanism for ensuring their proper integration with web services. The consistency of a service behavior can be verified through type-checking. This is one of the popular solutions for improving the quality of code in many programming languages. However, HTML does not provide type checking as it is a markup language and not a programming language. The contribution of this work is to introduce a new extension of HTML called Service Type-checking Markup Language (STML) for adding support of type checking in HTML for JSON based REST services. STML can be used for defining the expected data types of response from JSON based REST services which will be used for populating the content within HTML elements of a web component. Although JSON has five data types viz. string, number, boolean, object and array but STML is made to supports only string, number and object. This is because of the fact that both object and array are considered as string, when populated in HTML elements. In order to define the data type of any HTML element, developer just needs to add the custom STML attributes of st-string, st-number and st-boolean for string, number and boolean respectively. These all annotations of STML are used by the developer who is writing a web component and it enables the other developers to use automated type-checking for ensuring the proper integration of their REST services with the same web component. Two utilities have been written for developers who are using STML based web components. One of these utilities is used for automated type-checking during the development phase. It uses the browser console for showing the error description if integrated web service is not returning the response with expected data type. The other utility is a Gulp based command line utility for removing the STML attributes before going in production. This ensures the delivery of STML free web pages in the production environment. Both of these utilities have been tested to perform type checking of REST services through STML based web components and results have confirmed the feasibility of evaluating service behavior only through HTML. Currently, STML is designed for automated type-checking of integrated REST services but it can be extended to introduce a complete service testing suite based on HTML only, and it will transform STML from Service Type-checking Markup Language to Service Testing Markup Language.

Keywords: REST, STML, type checking, web component

Procedia PDF Downloads 226

Authors: Yakup Akgül, Kemal Vatansever

Abstract:

E-Government services offer citizens an easy way to accomplish their work anytime and anywhere. Ensuring the accessibility and usability of such services is crucial to citizens to allow smooth online transaction. In this paper, an empirical study to investigate the accessibility and usability of a representative sample of Turkish e-government services presented. The study evaluated sixty one Turkish government websites according to four perspectives.The accessibility will be based on the compliance to WCAG 2.0 recommendations, and the usability will be based on a heuristics-based content, HTML and CSS validity and current use of HTML 5 and ARIA. The evaluation results show that the examined e-Government services have one or more accessibility issues. On the other hand, in terms of usability, most services were usable and well designed, thus little work is recommended to make them more user-friendly and attractive to citizen.

Keywords: accessibility, e-government, usability, Turkey

Procedia PDF Downloads 534

Authors: Rihab Ben Lamine, Raoudha Ben Jemaa, Ikram Amous Ben Amor

Abstract:

This paper proposes a graph planning technique for semantic adaptable Web Services composition. First, we use an ontology based context model for extending Web Services descriptions with information about the most suitable context for its use. Then, we transform the composition problem into a semantic context aware graph planning problem to build the optimal service composition based on user's context. The construction of the planning graph is based on semantic context aware Web Service discovery that allows for each step to add most suitable Web Services in terms of semantic compatibility between the services parameters and their context similarity with the user's context. In the backward search step, semantic and contextual similarity scores are used to find best composed Web Services list. Finally, in the ranking step, a score is calculated for each best solution and a set of ranked solutions is returned to the user.

Keywords: semantic web service, web service composition, adaptation, context, graph planning

Procedia PDF Downloads 492