Search results for: accounting for IT services

Authors: Alexander Suuk Laar, Emmanuel Bekyieriya, Sylvester Isang, Benjamin Baguune

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Introduction: In Ghana, despite the implementation of strategies and initiatives to ensure universal access to reproductive health and family planning (FP) services for the past two decades, interventions have not adequately addressed the access and utilization needs of women of reproductive age, especially in rural Ghana. To improve access and use of reproductive and maternal health services in Ghana, a free maternal care exemption policy under the universal health coverage of the National Health Insurance Scheme was implemented in 2005. Despite the importance of FP, this service was left out of the benefit package of the policy. Low or no use of FP services is often associated with poor health among women. However, to date, there has been limited research on perspectives of women for not making FP services as part of the benefit package of the free maternal health services. This qualitative study explored perceptions of women on the comprehensiveness of the free maternal health benefit package and the effects on utilisation of services in the rural Upper West region of Ghana to improve services. Methods: This exploratory qualitative study used focus group discussions with pregnant and lactating women in three rural districts in the Upper West region of Ghana. Six focus groups were held with both pregnant women and lactating mothers at the time of the interview. Three focus group discussions were organised with the same category of women in each district. We used a purposive sampling procedure to select the participants from the districts. The interviews with the written consent of the participants lasted between 60 minutes and 120 minutes. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke thematic framework guidelines. Results: This research presents an in-depth account of women's perceptions on the effects associated with the uptake of FP services and its exclusion from the benefit package of the free maternal health policy. Our study found that participants did not support the exclusion of FP services in the benefit package. Participants mentioned factors hampering their access to and use of FP and contraceptive services to include the cost of services, distance and cost of transport to health facilities, lack of knowledge about FP services, socio-cultural norms and negative attitude of healthcare professionals. Participants are of the view that making FP services part of the benefit package could have addressed the cost aspect of services which act as the main barrier to improve the use of services by poor rural women. Conclusion: Women of reproductive age face cost barriers that limit their access to and use of FP and contraception services in the rural Upper West region of Ghana and need health policymakers to revise the free maternal health package to include FP services. It is essential for policymakers to begin considering revising the free maternal health policy benefit package to include FP services to help address the cost barrier for rural poor women to use services.

Keywords: benefit package, free maternal policy, women, Ghana, rural Upper West Region, Universal Health Coverage.

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Authors: Rachel Tambyah, Katarzyna Olcoń, Julaine Allan, Pete Destry, Thomas Astell-Burt

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The rising social and financial burden of mental illness indicates an urgent need to explore interventions that can be used as well as or instead of traditional treatments. Although there is growing evidence of the positive mental health outcomes of spending time in nature, the implementation of nature-based interventions (NBIs) within mental health services remains minimal. Based on interviews with mental health clinicians in Australia, this study demonstrated that clinicians supported the use of NBIs and would promote them to their clients.

Keywords: nature, nature-based interventions, mental health, mental health services, mental health clinicians

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Authors: Rania Khadim, Mohammed Erritali, Abdelhakim Maaden

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Nowadays Wireless Sensor Networks have attracted worldwide research and industrial interest, because they can be applied in various areas. Geographic routing protocols are very suitable to those networks because they use location information when they need to route packets. Obviously, location information is maintained by Location-Based Services provided by network nodes in a distributed way. In this paper we choose to evaluate the performance of two hierarchical rendezvous location based-services, GLS (Grid Location Service) and HLS (Hierarchical Location Service) coupled to the GPSR routing protocol (Greedy Perimeter Stateless Routing) for Wireless Sensor Network. The simulations were performed using NS2 simulator to evaluate the performance and power of the two services in term of location overhead, the request travel time (RTT) and the query Success ratio (QSR). This work presents also a new scalability performance study of both GLS and HLS, specifically, what happens if the number of nodes N increases. The study will focus on three qualitative metrics: The location maintenance cost, the location query cost and the storage cost.

Keywords: location based-services, routing protocols, scalability, wireless sensor networks

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Authors: Sandra Rigot, Samira Demaria, Frederic Lemaire

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The starting point of this research is the contemporary capitalist paradox: there is a real scarcity of long term investment despite the boom of potential long term investors. This gap represents a major challenge: there are important needs for long term financing in developed and emerging countries in strategic sectors such as energy, transport infrastructure, information and communication networks. Moreover, the recent financial and sovereign debt crises, which have respectively reduced the ability of financial banking intermediaries and governments to provide long term financing, questions the identity of the actors able to provide long term financing, their methods of financing and the most appropriate forms of intermediation. The issue of long term financing is deemed to be very important by the EU Commission, as it issued a 2013 Green Paper (GP) on long-term financing of the EU economy. Among other topics, the paper discusses the impact of the recent regulatory reforms on long-term investment, both in terms of accounting (in particular fair value) and prudential standards for banks. For banks, prudential and accounting standards are also crucial. Fair value is indeed well adapted to the trading book in a short term view, but this method hardly suits for a medium and long term portfolio. Banks’ ability to finance the economy and long term projects depends on their ability to distribute credit and the way credit is valued (fair value or amortised cost) leads to different banking strategies. Furthermore, in the banking industry, accounting standards are directly connected to the prudential standards, as the regulatory requirements of Basel III use accounting figures with prudential filter to define the needs for capital and to compute regulatory ratios. The objective of these regulatory requirements is to prevent insolvency and financial instability. In the same time, they can represent regulatory constraints to long term investing. The balance between financial stability and the need to stimulate long term financing is a key question raised by the EU GP. Does fair value accounting contributes to short-termism in the investment behaviour? Should prudential rules be “appropriately calibrated” and “progressively implemented” not to prevent banks from providing long-term financing? These issues raised by the EU GP lead us to question to what extent the main regulatory requirements incite or constrain banks to finance long term projects. To that purpose, we study the 292 responses received by the EU Commission during the public consultation. We analyze these contributions focusing on particular questions related to fair value accounting and prudential norms. We conduct a two stage content analysis of the responses. First, we proceed to a qualitative coding to identify arguments of respondents and subsequently we run a quantitative coding in order to conduct statistical analyses. This paper provides a better understanding of the position that a large panel of European stakeholders have on these issues. Moreover, it adds to the debate on fair value accounting and its effects on prudential requirements for banks. This analysis allows us to identify some short term bias in banking regulation.

Keywords: basel 3, fair value, securitization, long term investment, banks, insurers

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Authors: Yakubu Nkom Bityong, A. I. Kabido, K. Venkateswarlu

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The influence of branding and consultancy services on sports development and marketing mix has been a matter of interest among coaches athletes and sports managers in Nigeria. Marketers use sports as a promotional vehicle towards attracting customers to their products and services. The use of images, names, and photographs of sports personalities to advertise beverages, cars, and a whole range of other products and services as it is clearly noticed all over the television, radio and print media has generated a lot of argument among consumers who have vested interest and are more drawn to their favorite teams and sports personalities than they are to many company products This paper examines the influence of branding and consultancy services on sports Performance of coaches, athletes and sports managers in Nigeria. From a population of 7,441 made up of coaches, athletes and sports managers, 372 respondents were sampled for the study. A self developed and standardized questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. One-tailed t-test was used to test the hypothesis. Results revealed that branding and consultancy services influence the performances of coaches, athletes and sports managers in Nigeria. It was concluded that the establishment of the National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Lagos with affiliated sports training programmes in Nigerian Universities is responsible for boosting the performance of sports personalities in Nigeria. It was recommended that National Policy on Sports should be reviewed in order to inculcate new methods and strategies towards enhancing sports development initiatives in the country while stakeholders should intensify regular training and retraining programmes for coaches, athletes and sports managers to update their knowledge and skills.

Keywords: branding, consultancy, sports performance, sports development

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Authors: Natalia Khvorostianov, Nelly Elias

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The present study seeks to analyze representation of social work in immigrant media, focusing on the case of online newspapers established by immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel. This immigrant population is particularly interesting because social work did not exist as a profession practiced in the USSR and hence most FSU immigrants arrive in Israel without a basic knowledge of the essence of social work, the services it provides and the logic behind its treatment methods. The sample of 37 items was built through a Google search of the Russian online newspapers and portals originated in Israel by using keywords such as “social worker,” “social work services” and the like. All items were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis. Principal analytical categories used for the analysis were: Assessment of social work services (negative, positive, neutral); social workers’ professionalism and effectiveness; goals and motives underlying their activity; cross-cultural contact with immigrants and methods used in working with immigrants. On this basis, four dominant images used to portray Israeli social work services and social workers were identified: Lack of professionalism, cultural gaps between FSU immigrants and Israeli social workers, repressive character of social work services and social workers’ involvement in corruption and crime.

Keywords: FSU immigrants, immigrant media, media images, social workers

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Authors: Saeed Mohammadirad

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During the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, many developed countries were forced to restrict carbon emissions. Although Iran was one of the countries of Kyoto protocol, due to some special conditions, it was not required to restrict its carbon emissions. Flexible mechanisms were developed to assist countries responsible for reducing their carbon emissions, and regulated carbon markets were introduced. Carbon credits which are provided by organizations in countries with no responsibility to restrict their carbon emissions are traded in voluntary markets. This study focuses on how to measure and report the carbon allowances and carbon credits from accounting view point under both regulated and voluntary markets.

Keywords: carbon credits, carbon markets, accounting, flexible mechanisms

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Authors: Shivkumar Krishnamurti, Ruchi Agarwal

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The study examines the influence of marital status on consumers of products and services using blogs as a source of information. A pre-designed questionnaire was used to collect the primary data from the respondents (experiences). Data were collected from one hundred and eighty seven respondents residing in and around the Emirates of Sharjah and Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. The collected data was analyzed with the help of statistical tools such as averages, percentages, factor analysis, student’s t-test and structural equation modeling technique. Objectives of the study are to know the reasons how married and unmarried or single consumers of products and services are motivated to use blogs as a source of information, to know whether the consumers of products and services irrespective of their marital status share their views and experiences with other bloggers and to know the respondents’ future intentions towards blogging. The study revealed the following: Majority of the respondents have the motivation to blog because they are willing to receive comments on what they post about services, convenience of blogs to search for information about services and products, by blogging respondents share information on the symptoms of a disease/ disorder that may be experienced by someone, helps to share information about ready to cook mix products and are keen to spend more time blogging in the future.

Keywords: blog, consumer, information, marital status

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Authors: Mohammed Buhaya

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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the decision, implementation process and the outcomes of the introduction of the balanced scorecard in a developing country having particular regard to the impacts of agency and institutional, endogenous and exogenous. Design/methodology/approach: This study builds on a longitudinal explanatory case study, an institutional framework, especially Ter-Bogt and Scapens (2014) framework. Findings: Empirical findings drawn from a telecom company indicate that the dynamics of change of the company are influenced by the interconnection of external institutions and the company's situation and internal institutions encompassing issues of power, politics, and culture. Organizational practice introduced to secure external legitimacy is not always the case. The adoption of the balanced scorecard was the instrumental manner and had revolutionary change. Originality/value: In contrast to much previous research on management accounting practice, the paper analyses the process of change in one of developing country. The study also sheds new light on the power of religion as one of institutional logics and how this logic rises to potential to influence management accounting change among actors and achieving the company’s targets. This paper highlights how the culture and values can play a vital role in making the process of change smoother.

Keywords: balanced scorecard, institutional, management accounting practice, rules, and routines

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Authors: Dipendra Kumar Yadav, Rajani Ghimire, Saroj Yadav

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Background: The concern about adolescent on reproductive health has grown due to unprecedented increasing rates of early pregnancies and sexually transmitted Infections and they do not have adequate awareness and knowledge about it. Access to these services as well as information about them is, therefore, crucial for adolescents to utilize and benefit from sexual and reproductive health services. The objective of the study was to assess the reproductive health knowledge, attitude and health services utilization among adolescents in rural and urban areas of Kaski district. Materials and Methods: A community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among adolescents (10-19 years of age) in rural and urban areas of Kaski district, Nepal. The period of data collection was October to November, 2014. Altogether 419 participants were taken for the study. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 15.86 and standard deviation was ±2.305. More than half (58.7 %) of the respondents were females and 41.3 % were males. Out of 419, majority (78.8%) of the respondents were known about family planning, among them only 70 % of respondents were aware about family planning methods. Fifty-one percentages of the respondents were aware about the sexually transmitted diseases. Before giving a birth there is need to consult with partner with this fact 68.7 % of the respondents were agree, 23.6 % of them were neutral and very few (7.6%) of them were disagree. Nearly twenty six percentage of the respondents were faced the reproductive health problems within one month. Out of 107 respondents, 57.9 % did not utilize reproductive health services because of different reasons. Conclusions: The overall level of knowledge towards reproductive health among adolescents was found low. However, levels of attitude towards different reproductive health components were found favorable. Only 42.1% of the respondents were utilized reproductive health services among those who was faced the reproductive health problems within one month which was low coverage of reproductive health services utilization.

Keywords: reproductive health knowledge, reproductive health attitudes, adolescent, service utilization

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Authors: Anant Deogaonkar, Archana Nanoty

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The term civil service plays a vital role in functioning of any government. In today’s modern era of globalization civil services essentially contribute for the success of the good governance system. The civil service in India refers to the body of government officials employed in civil occupations that are neither political nor judicial. The Indian Civil Services were created to foster the idea of unity in diversity with the expectation of giving continuity and change in administration independent of the political scenario and turmoil affecting the country. The civil service is an integral part of administration and the structures of administration to determine the way civil service functions. The concept of good governance necessarily precludes the effective human resource management ensuring the root level reach of the good governance. The serious matter of concern is the element of change. The civil service in general has maintained status quo instead of sweeping changes in social and economic scenario. One may disagree for this but it is a fact on the street that the Indian civil service was not able to deliver up to the expectations of the people and was lacking on the service front. The effective management of human resources at civil service needs to be prioritized and will form a key factor in successful delivery of the desired results may be in minimum duration. This paper focuses on the various ways of effective management of human resources in civil services. It also highlights the importance of improvement in human resource management in civil services with the detailed discussion of positives and negatives if any of the human resource management in civil services.

Keywords: civil services, human resources management, India, governance

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Authors: Thuy Hang Le

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Traditional agroforestry systems are land-use practices still widespread in tropical and subtropical countries, while in Europe have significantly decreased due to land-use intensification, land abandonment, and urbanization. Nevertheless, scientific evidence reveals that traditional agroforestry systems significantly support biodiversity and ecosystem services and may positively contribute to socioeconomic rural regional development. We worked out a review that follows the PRISMA approach and compiled comprehensive information on traditional agroforestry systems in Europe. Based on the differentiation of different land-use systems, also considering the agricultural as well as forestry components, we compiled information regarding current distribution, management (agrodiversity), biodiversity and agrobiodiversity, ecosystem and landscape services, threats, and restoration initiatives. From a total of 3,304 studies that dealt with agroforestry systems in Europe, both “modern” (e.g., buffer strip) and “traditional” (e.g., meadow orchards), we filtered out 158 studies from 35 European countries which represent the basis for in-depth investigation. We found, for example, that the traditional pastoral agroforestry system in the Mediterranean region, the so-called Dehesa, can harbor up to 300 plant species as well as 238 bird species, of which 134 are breeding birds. With regard to carbon storage, the traditional orchard agroforestry system in Germany stocks ranged between 6.5 and 9.8 Mg C ha−1, showing significantly higher values compared to an intensively used grassland with around 3.4 to 6.7 Mg C ha−1. With the remarkably high benefit for biodiversity and ecosystem services provided, the important role and multifunctionality of traditional agroforestry systems in Europe should be acknowledged and promoted.

Keywords: biodiversity, ecosystem services, landscape services, traditional agroforestry systems

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Authors: Kim Young-Jin, Kim Byung-Kon

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Although more efforts to expand the application of BIM (Building Information Modeling) technologies have be pursued in recent years than ever, it’s true that there have been various challenges in doing so, including a lack or absence of relevant institutions, lots of costs required to build BIM-related infrastructure, incompatible processes, etc. This, in turn, has led to a more prolonged delay in the expansion of their application than expected at an early stage. Especially, attempts to save costs for building BIM-related infrastructure and provide various BIM services compatible with domestic processes include studies to link between BIM and cloud computing technologies. Also in this study, the author attempted to develop a cloud BIM service operation model through analyzing the level of BIM applications for the construction sector and deriving relevant service areas, and find how to link BIM services to the cloud operation model, as through archiving BIM data and creating a revenue structure so that the BIM services may grow spontaneously, considering a demand for cloud resources.

Keywords: construction IT, BIM (building information modeling), cloud computing, BIM service based cloud computing

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Authors: Kang-Hsien Li

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Along with global industries in using technology to enhance the application, make the study drawn more close to the people’s behavior and produce data analysis, extended out from the mental accounting of prospect theory, this paper provides the marketing and financial applications in the field of exploration and discussions with the future. For the foreseeable future, the payment behavior depends on the form of currency, which affects a variety of product types on the marketing of marketing strategy to provide diverse payment methods to enhance the overall sales performance. This not only affects people's consumption also affects people's investments. Credit card, PayPal, Apple pay, Bitcoin and any other with advances in technology and other emerging payment instruments, began to affect people for the value and the concept of money. Such as the planning of national social welfare policies, monetary and financial regulators and regulators. The expansion can be expected to discuss marketing and finance-related mental problems at the same time, recent studies reflect two different ideas, the first idea is that individuals affected by situational frames, not broad impact at the event level, affected by the people basically mental, second idea is that when an individual event affects a broader range, and majority of people will choose the same at the time that the rational choice. That are applied to practical application of marketing, at the same time provide an explanation in the financial market under the anomalies, due to the financial markets has varied investment products and different market participants, that also highlights these two points. It would provide in-depth description of humanity's mental. Certainly, about discuss mental accounting aspects, while artificial intelligence application development, although people would be able to reduce prejudice decisions, that will also lead to more discussion on the economic and marketing strategy.

Keywords: mental accounting, behavior economics, consumer behaviors, decision-making

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Authors: Zeynep Karacor, Rahime Hulya Ozturk

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In recent years, the rise of population density and the problem of aging population took attention to the health expenditures. In Turkey, some regulations and infrastructure changes in health sector have occurred. These changes are called Health Transformation Program. The productivity of health services, patient satisfaction, quality of services are tried to be improved with this program. Some radical changes are applied in Turkish economy in this context. The aim of this paper is to present the effects of Health Transformation Program on health expenditures. In the first part of the paper, some information’s about health system and applications in Turkey are discussed. In the second part, the aims of Health Transformation Program are explained. And in the third part the effects of Health Transformation Program on health expenditures are examined.

Keywords: health transformation program, Turkey, health services, health expenditures

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Authors: Nino Pailodze, Malkhaz Sulashvili, Vladimer Kekenadze, Tea Khutsishvili, Irma Makharashvili, Aleksandre Kekenadze

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In the nearest future among the important problems which Georgia has solve the most important is economic stability, that bases on fiscal policy and the proper definition of the its directions. The main source of the Budget revenue is the national income. The State uses taxes, loans and emission in order to create national income, were the principal weapon are taxes. As well as fiscal function of the fulfillment of the budget, tax systems successfully implement economic and social development and the regulatory functions of foreign economic relations. A tax is a mandatory, unconditional monetary payment to the budget made by a taxpayer in accordance with this Code, based on the necessary, nonequivalent and gratuitous character of the payment. Taxes shall be national and local. National taxes shall be the taxes provided for under this Code, the payment of which is mandatory across the whole territory of Georgia. Local taxes shall be the taxes provided for under this Code, introduced by normative acts of local self-government representative authorities (within marginal rates), the payment of which is mandatory within the territory of the relevant self-governing unit. National taxes have the leading role in tax systems, but also the local taxes have an importance role in tax systems. Exactly in the means of local taxes, the most part of the budget is formatted. National taxes shall be: income tax, profit tax, value added tax (VAT), excise tax, import duty, property tax shall be a local tax The property tax is one of the significant taxes in Georgia. The paper deals with the taxation mechanism that has been operated in Georgia. The above mention has the great influence in financial accounting. While comparing foreign legislation towards Georgian legislation we discuss the opportunity of using their experience. Also, we suggested recommendations in order to improve the tax system in financial accounting. In addition to accounting, which is regulated according the International Accounting Standards we have tax accounting, which is regulated by the Tax Code, various legal orders / regulations of the Minister of Finance. The rules are controlled by the tax authority, Revenue Service. The tax burden from the tax values are directly related to expenditures of the state from the emergence of the first day. Fiscal policy of the state is as well as expenditure of the state and decisions of taxation. In order to get the best and the most effective mobilization of funds, Government’s primary task is to decide the kind of taxation rules. Tax function is to reveal the substance of the act. Taxes have the following functions: distribution or the fiscal function; Control and regulatory functions. Foreign tax systems evolved in the different economic, political and social conditions influence. The tax systems differ greatly from each other: taxes, their structure, typing means, rates, the different levels of fiscal authority, the tax base, the tax sphere of action, the tax breaks.

Keywords: international accounting standards, financial accounting, tax systems, financial obligations

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Authors: Hironori Karachi, Haruka Yamashita

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Recently, the system of quick response (QR) code is getting popular. Many companies introduce new QR code payment services and the services are competing with each other to increase the number of users. For increasing the number of users, we should grasp the difference of feature of the demographic information, usage information, and value of users between services. In this study, we conduct an analysis of real-world data provided by Nomura Research Institute including the demographic data of users and information of users’ usages of two services; LINE Pay, and PayPay. For analyzing such data and interpret the feature of them, Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is widely used; however, in case of the target data, there is a problem of the missing data. EM-algorithm NMF (EMNMF) to complete unknown values for understanding the feature of the given data presented by matrix shape. Moreover, for comparing the result of the NMF analysis of two matrices, there is Discriminant NMF (DNMF) shows the difference of users features between two matrices. In this study, we combine EMNMF and DNMF and also analyze the target data. As the interpretation, we show the difference of the features of users between LINE Pay and Paypay.

Keywords: data science, non-negative matrix factorization, missing data, quality of services

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Authors: Ha Hai Duong, Amnon Levy Livermore, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Oleg Yerokhin

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The issues of economic development, the environment and human health have been investigated since 1990s. Previous researchers have found different empirical evidences of the relationship between income and environmental pollution, health as determinant of economic growth, and the effects of income and environmental pollution on health in various regions of the world. This paper concentrates on integrative relationship analysis of GDP, carbon dioxide emissions, and health services and population health in context of Vietnam. We applied the dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation on datasets of Vietnam’s sixty-three provinces for the years 2000-2010. Our results show the significant positive effect of GDP on emissions and the dependence of population health on emissions and health services. We find the significant relationship between population health and GDP. Additionally, health services are significantly affected by population health and GDP. Finally, the population size too is other important determinant of both emissions and GDP.

Keywords: economic development, emissions, environmental pollution, health

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Authors: Wan-I Lee, Nelio Mendoza Figueredo

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The impact of COVID-19 has a significant effect on all sectors of society globally. Health information technology (HIT) has become an effective health strategy in this age of distancing. In this regard, Mobile Health (mHealth) plays a critical role in managing patient and provider workflows during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the users' perception of service quality about mHealth services plays a significant role in shaping confidence and subsequent behaviors regarding the mHealth users' intention of use. This study's objective was to explore levels of user attributes analyzed by a qualitative method of how health practitioners and patients are satisfied or dissatisfied with using mHealth services; and analyzed the users' intention in the context of Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research explores the experienced usability of a mHealth services during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study uses qualitative methods that include in-depth and semi-structured interviews that investigate participants' perceptions and experiences and the meanings they attribute to them. The five cases consisted of health practitioners, clinic staff, and patients' experiences using mHealth services. This study encourages participants to discuss issues related to the research question by asking open-ended questions, usually in one-to-one interviews. The findings show the positive and negative attributes of mHealth service quality. Hence, the significant importance of patients' and health practitioners' issues on several dimensions of perceived service quality is system quality, information quality, and interaction quality. A concept map for perceptions regards to emergency uses' intention of mHealth services process is depicted. The findings revealed that users pay more attention to "Medical care", "ease of use" and "utilitarian benefits" and have less importance for "Admissions and Convenience" and "Social influence". To improve mHealth services, the mHealth providers and health practitioners should better manage users' experiences to enhance mHealth services. This research contributes to the understanding of service quality issues in mHealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19, mobile health, service quality, use intention

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Authors: Till Gramberg, Max Kellner, Erwin Gross

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This paper presents a comprehensive investigation into the topic of smart services and IIoT-Platforms, focusing on their selection and prioritization in manufacturing organizations. First, a literature review is conducted to provide a basic understanding of the current state of research in the area of smart services. Based on discussed and established definitions, a definition approach for this paper is developed. In addition, value propositions for smart services are identified based on the literature and expert interviews. Furthermore, the general requirements for the provision of smart services are presented. Subsequently, existing approaches for the selection and development of smart services are identified and described. In order to determine the requirements for the selection of smart services, expert opinions from successful companies that have already implemented smart services are collected through semi-structured interviews. Based on the results, criteria for the evaluation of existing methods are derived. The existing methods are then evaluated according to the identified criteria. Furthermore, a novel method for the selection of smart services in manufacturing companies is developed, taking into account the identified criteria and the existing approaches. The developed concept for the method is verified in expert interviews. The method includes a collection of relevant smart services identified in the literature. The actual relevance of the use cases in the industrial environment was validated in an online survey. The required data and sensors are assigned to the smart service use cases. The value proposition of the use cases is evaluated in an expert workshop using different indicators. Based on this, a comparison is made between the identified value proposition and the required data, leading to a prioritization process. The prioritization process follows an established procedure for evaluating technical decision-making processes. In addition to the technical requirements, the prioritization process includes other evaluation criteria such as the economic benefit, the conformity of the new service offering with the company strategy, or the customer retention enabled by the smart service. Finally, the method is applied and validated in an industrial environment. The results of these experiments are critically reflected upon and an outlook on future developments in the area of smart services is given. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the selection and prioritization process as well as the technical considerations associated with smart service implementation in manufacturing organizations. The proposed method serves as a valuable guide for decision makers, helping them to effectively select the most appropriate smart services for their specific organizational needs.

Keywords: smart services, IIoT, industrie 4.0, IIoT-platform, big data

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Authors: Md. Rashed Aalm, Md. Nuruzzaman Khan, Yothin Sawangdee

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Background: Around 47% of the total pregnancies are unintended in Bangladesh, which lead to several adverse consequences, including maternal and child mortality. Use of menstrual regulation (MR) can help women to reduce unintended pregnancy related adverse consequences. We explored the prevalence and determinants of MR services among ever-married women in Bangladesh. Methods: Total of 14,346 ever-married women data were analysed from the 2017 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Our study variable was use or non-use of MR services. Individual, household, and community level factors were the explanatory factors. Multilevel mixed-effect Poisson regression model was used to determine the factors associated with MR services in Bangladesh. Results: Nearly 7% of the total women in Bangladesh use MR services. Use of MR services was found higher among women who were aged 20-30 ages (IRR 1.60, 95% CI: 1.17–2.17), who were overweight (IRR 1.43, 95% CI: 1.13–1.81), had at least 1 child (IRR 2.97, 95% CI: 2.34– 3.77) or > 2 children (IRR 3.22, 95% CI: 2.45–4.20), and the birth preceding birth interval was(2 – 4) years (IRR 1.56, 95% CI: 1.13–2.15). Around 1.39 times (95% CI: 1.11–1.73) higher likelihood of MR was found among women whose husbands were engage with business. At the community level, MR service was found lower among the women who resided in the community with higherilliteracy (IRR 0.67, 95% CI: 0.42–0.96) and the Mymensingh division (IRR 0.39, 95% CI: 0.31–0.91). Conclusion: Use of MR service is comparatively low, which indicate a significant proportion of unintended pregnancy continued toward life-birth. This could be responsible for higher adverse maternal and child health outcomes in Bangladesh. Initiatives should be taken to ensure MR services is available when women need this service.

Keywords: menstrual regulation, pattern, risk, maternal health, Bangladesh

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Authors: Aisha F. Bushager

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Today we are more exposed than ever to cyber threats and attacks at personal, community, organizational, national, and international levels. More aspects of our lives are operating on computer networks simply because we are living in the fifth domain, which is called the Cyberspace. One of the most sensitive areas that are vulnerable to cyber threats and attacks is the Electronic Banking (e-Banking) area, where the banking sector is providing online banking services to its clients. To be able to obtain the clients trust and encourage them to practice e-Banking, also, to maintain the services provided by the banks and ensure safety, cyber security and risks control should be given a high priority in the e-banking area. The aim of the study is to carry out risk assessment on the e-banking services and determine the cyber threats, cyber attacks, and vulnerabilities that are facing the e-banking area specifically in the Kingdom of Bahrain. To collect relevant data, structured interviews were taken place with e-banking experts in different banks. Then, collected data where used as in input to the risk management framework provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which was the model used in the study to assess the risks associated with e-banking services. The findings of the study showed that the cyber threats are commonly human errors, technical software or hardware failure, and hackers, on the other hand, the most common attacks facing the e-banking sector were phishing, malware attacks, and denial-of-service. The risks associated with the e-banking services were around the moderate level, however, more controls and countermeasures must be applied to maintain the moderate level of risks. The results of the study will help banks discover their vulnerabilities and maintain their online services, in addition, it will enhance the cyber security and contribute to the management and control of risks that are facing the e-banking sector.

Keywords: cyber security, e-banking, risk assessment, threats identification

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Authors: Catalina Florentina Pricope

Abstract:

The last two decades witnessed a movement towards harmonization of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) throughout the global economy. This investigation seeks to identify the factors that could explain the adoption of IFRS by poor jurisdictions. While there has been a considerable amount, of literature published on the effects and key drivers of IFRS adoption in both developed and developing countries, little attention has been paid to jurisdictions with less developed capital markets and low-income levels exclusively. Drawing upon the Institutional Isomorphism theory and analyzing a sample of 45 poor jurisdictions between 2008 and 2013, the study empirically shows that poor jurisdictions are driven by legitimacy concerns rather than by economic reasoning to adopt an international accounting perspective. This in turn has implications for the IASB, as it should seek to influence institutional pressures within a particular jurisdiction in order to promote IFRS adoption.

Keywords: IFRS adoption, isomorphism, poor jurisdictions, accounting harmonization

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Authors: Mona Almanasef, Dalia Almaghaslah, Geetha Kandasamy, Rajalakshimi Vasudevan, Sadia Batool

Abstract:

Background: Community pharmacists are one of the most accessible healthcare practitioners worldwide and their services are used by a large proportion of the population. Expanding the roles of community pharmacists could contribute to reducing pressure on general health practice and other areas of health services. This research aimed to evaluate the contribution of community pharmacists in the provision of public health services and to investigate the perceived barriers to the provision of these services in Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: This study followed a cross-sectional design using an online anonymous self-administered questionnaire. The study took place in the Asir region, Saudi Arabia, between September 2019 and February 2020. A convenience sampling strategy was used to select and recruit the study participants. The questionnaire was adapted from previous research and involved three sections: demographics, involvement in public health services and barriers to practicing public health roles. Results: The total number of respondents was 193. The proportion of respondents who reported that they were “very involved” or “involved” in each service was 61.7% for weight management, 60.6% for sexual health, 57.5% for healthy eating, 53.4% for physical activity promotion, 51.3% for dental health, 46.1% for smoking cessation, 39.4% for screening for diabetes, 35.7% for screening for hypertension, 31.1% for alcohol dependence and drug misuse counseling, 30.6% for screening for dyslipidaemia, and 21.8% for vaccination and immunization. Most of the barriers in the current research were rated as having low relevance to the provision of public health services. Conclusion: Findings in the current research suggest that community pharmacists in the Asir region have varying levels of involvement in public health roles. Further research needs to be undertaken to understand the barriers to the provision of public health services and what strategies would be beneficial for enhancing the public health role of community pharmacists in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: community pharmacist, public health, Asir region, Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Laila Yasir Al-Harthy, Ali H. Al-Badi

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As an emerging business model, cloud computing has been initiated to satisfy the need of organizations and to push Information Technology as a utility. The shift to the cloud has changed the way Information Technology departments are managed traditionally and has raised many concerns for both, public and private sectors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of cloud computing services replacing services provided traditionally by IT departments. Therefore, it aims to 1) explore whether organizations in Oman are ready to move to the cloud; 2) identify the deciding factors leading to the adoption or rejection of cloud computing services in Oman; and 3) provide two case studies, one for a successful Cloud provider and another for a successful adopter. This paper is based on multiple research methods including conducting a set of interviews with cloud service providers and current cloud users in Oman; and collecting data using questionnaires from experts in the field and potential users of cloud services. Despite the limitation of bandwidth capacity and Internet coverage offered in Oman that create a challenge in adopting the cloud, it was found that many information technology professionals are encouraged to move to the cloud while few are resistant to change. The recent launch of a new Omani cloud service provider and the entrance of other international cloud service providers in the Omani market make this research extremely valuable as it aims to provide real-life experience as well as two case studies on the successful provision of cloud services and the successful adoption of these services.

Keywords: cloud computing, cloud deployment models, cloud service models, deciding factors

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Authors: Bing Li, Zhi Li, Yilong Yang

Abstract:

Web classification can promote the quality of service discovery and management in the service repository. It is widely used to locate developers desired services. Although traditional classification methods based on supervised learning models can achieve classification tasks, developers need to manually mark web services, and the quality of these tags may not be enough to establish an accurate classifier for service classification. With the doubling of the number of web services, the manual tagging method has become unrealistic. In recent years, the attention mechanism has made remarkable progress in the field of deep learning, and its huge potential has been fully demonstrated in various fields. This paper designs a multi-head attention graph convolutional network (MHAGCN) service classification method, which can assign different weights to the neighborhood nodes without complicated matrix operations or relying on understanding the entire graph structure. The framework combines the advantages of the attention mechanism and graph convolutional neural network. It can classify web services through automatic feature extraction. The comprehensive experimental results on a real dataset not only show the superior performance of the proposed model over the existing models but also demonstrate its potentially good interpretability for graph analysis.

Keywords: attention mechanism, graph convolutional network, interpretability, service classification, service discovery

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Authors: Ademola Ibukunolu Atanda, Gbenga Nathaniel Adeola

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The study examined awareness of child rights as a determinant of effective student personnel services in public secondary schools in Southwestern Nigeria. It was survey research. The sample comprised 433 teachers, 137 school administrators, and 968 students who were drawn by simple random sampling techniques. The respondents were given copies of questionnaires tagged “school administrator/teacher’s awareness of child’s rights and student personnel services elements inventory.” Key Informant Interview (KII) was also employed. The data were analysed using frequency count, percentages, weighted average, grand mean, standard deviation, and Pearson Product Moment Correlation, while KII was qualitatively analysed. The findings of the study revealed that public secondary school administrator awareness of child rights was at a moderate level, but the awareness of child rights was low among the teachers. The study equally revealed that student personnel services are moderately provided in public secondary schools in Southwestern Nigeria, but security remains a major challenge. It was also found that there was a significant relationship between awareness of child rights and effective student personnel services. It was therefore recommended, based on the findings, that attention should be given to heightening awareness of child rights among public secondary school administrators and teachers for effective student personnel services. Copies of the Child Right Act 2003 should also be made available in all public secondary schools in Southwestern Nigeria, as the study revealed that the documents were not available.

Keywords: student personnel, child right, administrator awareness, practice of child right

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Authors: Roseliza Mat Alipiah, David Raffaelli, J. C. R. Smart

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This research is a new approach as it integrates information from both environmental and social sciences to inform effective management of the wetlands. A three-stage research framework was developed for modelling the drivers and pressures imposed on the wetlands and their impacts to the ecosystem and the local communities. Firstly, a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) was used to predict the probability of anthropogenic activities affecting the delivery of different key wetland ecosystem services under different management scenarios. Secondly, Choice Experiments (CEs) were used to quantify the relative preferences which key wetland stakeholder group (aquaculturists) held for delivery of different levels of these key ecosystem services. Thirdly, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) was applied to produce an ordinal ranking of the alternative management scenarios accounting for their impacts upon ecosystem service delivery as perceived through the preferences of the aquaculturists. This integrated ecosystem management approach was applied to a wetland ecosystem in Setiu, Terengganu, Malaysia which currently supports a significant level of aquaculture activities. This research has produced clear guidelines to inform policy makers considering alternative wetland management scenarios: Intensive Aquaculture, Conservation or Ecotourism, in addition to the Status Quo. The findings of this research are as follows: The BBN revealed that current aquaculture activity is likely to have significant impacts on water column nutrient enrichment, but trivial impacts on caged fish biomass, especially under the Intensive Aquaculture scenario. Secondly, the best fitting CE models identified several stakeholder sub-groups for aquaculturists, each with distinct sets of preferences for the delivery of key ecosystem services. Thirdly, the MCDA identified Conservation as the most desirable scenario overall based on ordinal ranking in the eyes of most of the stakeholder sub-groups. Ecotourism and Status Quo scenarios were the next most preferred and Intensive Aquaculture was the least desirable scenario. The methodologies developed through this research provide an opportunity for improving planning and decision making processes that aim to deliver sustainable management of wetland ecosystems in Malaysia.

Keywords: Bayesian belief network (BBN), choice experiments (CE), multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), aquaculture

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Authors: Lo Kar Yin

Abstract:

In view of the increasing speed and quantity of the housing supply, building, and civil engineering infrastructure works triggered by the pandemic across the globe, contractors, professional services providers (PSP), including consultants (e.g., architect, project manager, civil/geotechnical/structural engineer, building services engineer, quantity surveyor/cost manager, etc.) and suppliers have faced tremendous challenges of the fierce market, limited manpower, and resources under contract prices fluctuation and competitive fee and price. With qualitative analysis, this paper is to review the available information from the industry stakeholders with a view to finding solutions for enhancing efficiency, safety, and quality of construction value chain services for public and private organizations/companies’ sustainable growth, not limited to checking the deliverables and data transfer from multi-disciplinary parties. Technology, contracts, and people are the key requirements for shaping the construction industry. With the integration of a modern engineering contract (e.g., NEC) collaborative approach, practical workflows are designed to address loopholes together with different levels of people employment/retention and technology adoption to achieve the best value for money.

Keywords: efficiency, safety, quality, technology, contract, people, sustainable solutions, construction, services, integration

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Authors: M. Shahadat Hossain

Abstract:

People experiencing economic disadvantages have limited access to justice system. Employment status is a key indicator of economic disadvantage. There is a link between employment status and vulnerability to legal problems. This paper addresses the obstacles unemployed people experience to secure justice in Australia. This paper further explores exiting services for economically disadvantaged people to secure justice where these unemployment people can get access. It reveals that unemployed people are vulnerable to multifaced crime and violence. Due to high cost of legal services, these unemployed people are unable to afford legal services to access justice. They are often found higher levels of nonactions in terms of access to justice also due to lack of their initiatives. This paper further reveals that legal aid commissions are state and territory statutory agencies in Australia which provide free legal information, advice, duty lawyers, and legal representation services. Community legal centres are independent, non-profit government organizations with a focus of early advice, problem solving, and working with other agencies to address connected, financial, and health problems. Moreover, the private profession helps people who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer in several ways. But there are problems of shortage of funding for these legal services and making available to economically disadvantaged people. However, this paper argues that people experiencing long-term unemployment face barriers to secure justice due to their economic disadvantages. It further argues that services available for them to access to justice is inadequate.

Keywords: economic disadvantages, unemployment, access to justice, Australia

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