Search results for: service facilities

Authors: Richard Okyere Boadu, Judith Obiri-Yeboah, Kwame Adu Okyere Boadu, Nathan Kumasenu Mensah, Grace Amoh-Agyei

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Routine health information system (RHIS) quality assurance has become an important issue, not only because of its significance in promoting a high standard of patient care but also because of its impact on government budgets for the maintenance of health services. A routine health information system comprises healthcare data collection, compilation, storage, analysis, report generation, and dissemination on a routine basis in various healthcare settings. The data from RHIS give a representation of health status, health services, and health resources. The sources of RHIS data are normally individual health records, records of services delivered, and records of health resources. Using reliable information from routine health information systems is fundamental in the healthcare delivery system. Quality assurance practices are measures that are put in place to ensure the health data that are collected meet required quality standards. Routine health information system quality assurance practices ensure that data that are generated from the system are fit for use. This study considered quality assurance practices in the RHIS processes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in eight health facilities in Tarkwa Sub-Municipal Health Service in the western region of Ghana. The study involved routine quality assurance practices among the 90 health staff and management selected from facilities in Tarkwa Sub-Municipal who collected or used data routinely from 24th December 2019 to 20th January 2020. Results: Generally, Tarkwa Sub-Municipal health service appears to practice quality assurance during data collection, compilation, storage, analysis and dissemination. The results show some achievement in quality control performance in report dissemination (77.6%), data analysis (68.0%), data compilation (67.4%), report compilation (66.3%), data storage (66.3%) and collection (61.1%). Conclusions: Even though the Tarkwa Sub-Municipal Health Directorate engages in some control measures to ensure data quality, there is a need to strengthen the process to achieve the targeted percentage of performance (90.0%). There was a significant shortfall in quality assurance practices performance, especially during data collection, with respect to the expected performance.

Keywords: quality assurance practices, assessment of routine health information system quality, routine health information system, data quality

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Authors: Amina Boukelkoul, Rahil Boukelkoul, Leila Maachia

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The cumulative vapors emitted from the service stations may represent a hazard to the environment and the population. Besides fuel spill and their penetration into deep soil layers are the main contributors to soil and ground-water contamination in the vicinity of the petrol stations. The amount of the effluents from the service stations depends on strategy of maintenance and the policy adopted by the management to reduce the pollution. One key of the proposed approach is the idea of managing the effluents from the service stations which can be captured via use of a finite state Markov chain. Such a model can be embedded within a probabilistic operation and maintenance simulation reflecting the action to be done. In this paper, an approach of estimating a probabilistic percentage of the amount of emitted pollutants is presented. The finite state Markov model is used for decision problems with number of determined periods (life cycle) to predict the amount according to various options of operation.

Keywords: environment, markov modeling, pollution, service station

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Authors: Sirimanee Banjong

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This study aimed to 1) develop pre-service teachers’ leadership skills through camp-based learning, and 2) develop pre-service teachers’ teamwork skills through camp-based learning. An applied research methodology was used. The target group was derived from a purposive selection. It involved 32 fourth-year students in Early Childhood Education Program enrolling in a course entitled Seminar in Early Childhood Education provided during the second semester of the academic year 2013. The treatment was camp-based learning activities which applied a PDCA process including four stages: 1) plan, 2) do, 3) check, and 4) act. Research instruments were a learning camp program, a camp-based learning management plan, a 5-level assessment form for leadership skills and a 5-level assessment form for assessing teamwork skills. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results were: 1) pre-service teachers’ leadership skills yielded the before treatment average score at ¯("x" )=3.4, S.D.= 0.62 and the after-treatment average score at ¯("x" ) 4.29, S.D.=0.66 pre-service teachers’ teamwork skills yielded the before-treatment average score at ¯("x" )=3.31, S.D.= 0.60 and the after-treatment average score at ¯("x" )=4.42, S.D.= 0.66. Both differences were statistically significant at the .05 level. Thus, the pre-service teachers’ leadership and teamwork skills were significantly improved through the camp-based learning approach.

Keywords: learning camp, leadership skills, teamwork skills, pre-service teachers

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Authors: Daniella Kucsma

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The examination of the Privat Service Organization’s performance evaluation includes several steps that help Public organizations to develop a more efficient system. Public sector organizations have different characteristics than the competitive sector, so it can be stated that other/new elements become more important in their performance processes. The literature in this area is diverse, so highlighting an indicator system can be useful for introducing a system, but it is also worthwhile to measure the specific elements of the organization. In the case of a public service organization, due to the service obligation, it is usually possible to talk about a high number of users, so compliance is more difficult. For the organization, it is an important target to place great emphasis on the increase of service standards and the development of related processes. In this research, the health sector is given a prominent role, as it is a sensitive area where both organizational and individual performance is important for all participants. As a primary step, the content of the strategy is decisive, as this is important for the efficient structure of the process. When designing any system, it is important to review the expectations of the stakeholders, as this is primary when considering the design. The goal of this paper is to build the foundations of a performance management and indexing framework that can help a hospital to provide effective feedback and a direction that is important in assessing and developing a service and can become a management philosophy.

Keywords: health sector, public sector, performance management, strategy

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Authors: Leena Wanganoo

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In this digital age with the mushrooming of online companies across the globe has led to an unprecedented new business model. The frequency of online purchasing varies across the globe, but trend shows a steep upward movement. From Generation X to the Millennial the consumer not only wants to order the product with the click of mouse but also very demanding service quality during pre to post-transaction stage. The existing research examines the impact of website quality on the on behavioral intentions in e-services customers and has not adequately recognized the quality of e-commerce logistics perceived by the customer.In order to address this gap, this study examines the relationship among the logistics service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty. Drawing upon a sample of 350 millennial customers from various regions of UAE will work within the framework of structural equation modeling (SEM). Finally, the study would use Importance-Performance analysis (IPA) to discuss the relations of the level of customers’ expected logistics service quality and level of customers’ perceived logistics serviced quality.

Keywords: logistics service quality, customer satisfaction, loyalty, electronic commerce

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Authors: Frederic Fovet

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Inclusive provisions have been statutorily mandated in North America for now over two decades. Despite a growing body of literature around inclusive practices, many in-service teachers continue to express difficulties when it comes to tangible implementation of inclusion in the everyday classroom. While there is debate around the various forms inclusion can take (UDL, differentiation, personalization, etc.), there appears to be a more significant hurdle in getting in-service teachers to fully embrace inclusion both as a goal and a practice. This paper investigates teachers’ degree of awareness around the Social Model of Disability. It argues that teachers often lack basic awareness of disability studies, more particularly of the Social Model of Disability, and that this has a direct impact on their capacity to conceptualize and embrace inclusion. The paper draws from the researcher’s experience as a graduate instructor with in-service teachers, as well as from his experience as a consultant working with schools and school boards. The methodology chosen here is phenomenology, and it draws on tools such as auto-ethnography. The paper opens a discussion around the reform and transformation of pre-service teacher training. It argues that disability studies should be integrated into teacher training as it plays a key role in having teachers develop a theoretical understanding of disability as a social construct.

Keywords: disability, K-12, inclusion, social model, in-service teachers

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Authors: Lucy Ampaw-Asiedu, Terri R. Norton

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In the wake of recent disasters happening around the world such as earthquake in Italy (January, 2017); hurricanes in the United States (US) (September 2016 and September 2017); and compounding disasters in Haiti (September 2010 and September 2016); to our best knowledge, never has the world seen the need to work on preemptive rather than reactionary measures to salvage this situation than now. Tornadoes are natural hazards that mostly affect mid-western and central states in the US. Tornadoes, like all natural hazards such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and others, are very destructive and result in massive destruction to homes, cause billions of dollars in damage and claims many lives. Healthcare facilities in general are vulnerable to disasters, and therefore, the safety of patients, health workers and those who come in to seek shelter should be a priority. The focus of this study is to assess disaster management measures instituted by healthcare facilities. Thus, the sole aim of the study is to examine the vulnerabilities and the design of safe spaces in healthcare facilities in Central US. Objectives that guide the study are to primarily identify the impacts of tornadoes in hospitals and to assess the structural design or specifications of safe spaces. St. John’s Regional Medical Center, now Mercy Hospital in Joplin, is used as a case study. Preliminary results show that the lateral base shear of the proposed design to be 684.24 ton (1508.49kip) for the safe space. Findings from this work will be used to make recommendations about the design of safe spaces for health care facilities in Central US.

Keywords: disaster management, safe spaces, structural design, tornado, vulnerability

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Authors: Ana L. Martins, Rita S. Saraiva, João C. Ferreira

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Much effort has been placed on the assessment of perceived service quality. Several models can be found in literature, but these are mainly focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships. Literature on how to assess perceived quality in business-to-business (B2B) contexts is scarce both conceptually and in terms of its application. This research aims at filling this gap in literature by applying INDSERV to a case study situation. Under this scope, this research aims at analyzing the adequacy of the proposed assessment tool to other context besides the one where it was developed and by doing so analyzing the perceive quality of the advertisement service provided by a specific television network to its B2B customers. The INDSERV scale was adopted and applied to a sample of 33 clients, via questionnaires adapted to interviews. Data was collected in person or phone. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection was performed. Qualitative data analysis followed content analysis protocol. Quantitative analysis used hypotheses testing. Findings allowed to conclude that the perceived quality of the television service provided by television network is very positive, being the Soft Process Quality the parameter that reveals the highest perceived quality of the service as opposed to Potential Quality. To this end, some comments and suggestions were made by the clients regarding each one of these service quality parameters. Based on the hypotheses testing, it was noticed that only advertisement clients that maintain a connection to the television network from 5 to 10 years do show a significant different perception of the TV advertisement service provided by the company in what the Hard Process Quality parameter is concerned. Through the collected data content analysis, it was possible to obtain the percentage of clients which share the same opinions and suggestions for improvement. Finally, based on one of the four service quality parameter in a B2B context, managerial suggestions were developed aiming at improving the television network advertisement perceived quality service.

Keywords: B2B, case study, INDSERV, perceived service quality

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Authors: Chitrangi Gupta, Arvind Bhardwaj

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This study seeks to investigate and quantify the influence of various dimensions of supply chain management (namely, supplier relationships, compatibility, specifications and standards, delivery processes, and after-sales service) on distinct dimensions of healthcare service quality (specifically, responsiveness, trustworthiness, and security) within the operational framework of XYZ Superspeciality Hospital, situated in Delhi. The name of the Hospital is not being mentioned here because of the privacy policy of the hospital. The primary objective of this research is to elucidate the impact of supply chain management practices on the overall quality of healthcare services offered within hospital settings. Employing a quantitative research design, this study utilizes a hypothesis-testing approach to systematically discern the relationship between supply chain management dimensions and the quality of health services. The findings of this study underscore the significant influence exerted by supply chain management dimensions, specifically supplier relationships, specifications and standards, delivery processes, and after-sales service, on the enhancement of healthcare service quality. Moreover, the study's results reveal that demographic factors such as gender, qualifications, age, and experience do not yield discernible disparities in the relationship between supply chain management and healthcare service quality.

Keywords: supply chain management, healthcare, hospital operations, service delivery

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Authors: Hyunjoo Park, Taehyun Kim, Taehyun Kim

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The government that declared 'de-nuclearization' pushes up renewable energy policies such as solar power and wind power as an alternative to nuclear power generation. However, local residents who are concerned about the development and natural disasters have been hit by opposition, and related businesses around the country are experiencing difficulties. There is also a voice saying that installing a large wind power generator will cause landslides, low frequencies and noise, which will have a bad influence. Renewal is only a harmful and disgusting facility for the residents. In this way, it is expected that extreme social conflicts will occur in the decision making process related to the locally unwanted land-use (LULU). The government's efforts to solve this problem have been steadily progressing, but the systematic methodology for bringing in active participation and opinion gathering of the residents has not yet been established except for the simple opinion poll or referendum. Therefore, it is time to identify the factors that concern the local residents about the wind power generation facilities, and to find ways to make policy decision-making possible. In this study, we analyze the perception of people about offshore and onshore wind power facilities through questionnaires or interviews, and examine quantitative and qualitative precedent studies to analyze them. In addition, the study evaluates what factors affect the local acceptance of wind power facilities. As a result of the factor analysis of the questionnaire items, factors affecting the residents' acceptance of the wind power facility were extracted from four factors such as environmental, economic, risk, social, and management factor. The study also found that the influence of the determinants of local acceptance on the regional acceptability differs according to the demographic characteristics such as gender and income level. This study will contribute to minimizing the conflict on the installation of wind power facilities through communication among the local residents.

Keywords: factor analysis, local acceptance, locally unwanted land-use, LULU, wind power generation facilities

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Authors: Abdul Rashid, Varsha Rokade

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Service Quality within retail units is pivotal for satisfying customers and retaining them. This study on customer perception towards Service Quality variables in Retail aims to identify the dimensions and their impact on customers. An analytical study of the different retail service quality variables was done to understand the relationship between them. The study tries exploring the factors that attract the customers towards the organised and unorganised retail stores in the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, India. As organised retailers are seen as offering similar products in the outlets, improving service quality is seen as critical to ensuring competitive advantage over unorganised retailers. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale from existing walk-in customers of selected organised and unorganised retail stores in Bhopal City of Madhya Pradesh, India. The data was then analysed by factor analysis using (SPSS) Statistical Package for the Social Sciences especially Percentage analysis, ANOVA and Chi-Square. This study tries to find interrelationship between various Retail Service Quality dimensions, which will help the retailers to identify the steps needed to improve the overall quality of service. Thus, the findings of the study prove to be helpful in understanding the service quality variables which should be considered by organised and unorganised retail stores in Capital city of Madhya Pradesh, India.Also, findings of this empirical research reiterate the point of view that dimensions of Service Quality in Retail play an important role in enhancing customer satisfaction – a sector with high growth potential and tremendous opportunities in rapidly growing economies like India’s. With the introduction of FDI in multi-brand retailing, a large number of international retail players are expected to enter the Indian market, this intern will bring more competition in the retail sector. For benchmarking themselves with global standards, the Indian retailers will have to improve their service quality.

Keywords: organized retail, unorganised retail, retail service quality, service quality dimension

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Authors: N. Dlamini, Mpumelelo G. Ndlela, Philisiwe Dlamini, Nicholus Kisyeri, Bhekizitha Sithole

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Accessing health services during the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated scarcity to routine medication. To ensure continuous accessibility to services, Eswatini launched Community Health Commodities Distribution (CHCD). Eligible Antiretroviral Therapy(ART) stable clients (VL<1,000) and patients on Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) medications were attended at community pick up points (PUP) based on distance between clients’ residence and the public health facility. Services provided includes ART and Pre-Exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) refills and NCD drug refills). The number of community PUP was 14% higher than health facility visits. Among all medications and commodities distributed between April and October 2020 at the PUP, 64% were HIV-related (HIV rapid test, HIVST, VL test, PrEP meds), and 36% were NCD related. The rapid roll out of CHCD during COVID-19 pandemic reduced the risk of COVID-19 transmission to clients as travel to health facilities was eliminated. It Additionally increased access to commodities during COVID-19-driven lockdown, decongested health facilities, integrated model of care, and increase service coverage. It was also noted that CHCD added different curative and HIV related services based on client specific needs and availability of the commodities.

Keywords: community health commodities distribution, pick up points, antiretroviral therapy, pre-exposure prophylaxis

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Authors: Zahra Raeisi, Reza Akbari

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Contracting is known as one of the important tasks in virtual organization creation. Contracting is a costly process in terms of time and effort. One way to cut the time and effort is conducting contract electronically. The online contracting enable us to form virtual organization (VO) dynamically. This work presents an agent-service oriented framework for online contracting in virtual organizations. The proposed framework considers the main aspects and steps of traditional contracting process and uses the efficiency of service and agent based methodologies in order to provide a flexible and efficient way to establish contracts electronically in a VO.

Keywords: service oriented architecture, online contracts, agent-oriented architecture, virtual organization

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Authors: Hsiao-Ting Huang, Chang Hsueh-Sheng

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Taiwan is an island country which is affected by the monsoon deeply. Under the climate change, the frequency of extreme rainstorm by typhoon becomes more and more often Since 2000. When the extreme rainstorm comes, it will cause serious damage in Taiwan, especially in urban area. It is suffered by the flooding and the government take it as the urgent issue. On the past, the land use of urban planning does not take flood-detention into consideration. With the development of the city, the impermeable surface increase and most of the people live in urban area. It means there is the highly vulnerability in the urban area, but it cannot deal with the surface runoff and the flooding. However, building the detention pond in hydraulic engineering way to solve the problem is not feasible in urban area. The land expropriation is the most expensive construction of the detention pond in the urban area, and the government cannot afford it. Therefore, the management strategy of flooding in urban area should use the existing resource, public facilities land. It can archive the performance of flood-detention through providing the public facilities land with the detention function. As multi-use public facilities land, it also can show the combination of the land use and water agency. To this purpose, this research generalizes the factors of multi-use for public facilities land as flood-detention space with literature review. The factors can be divided into two categories: environmental factors and conditions of public facilities. Environmental factors including three factors: the terrain elevation, the inundation potential and the distance from the drainage system. In the other hand, there are six factors for conditions of public facilities, including area, building rate, the maximum of available ratio etc. Each of them will be according to it characteristic to given the weight for the land use suitability analysis. This research selects the rules of combination from the logical combination. After this process, it can be classified into three suitability levels. Then, three suitability levels will input to the physiographic inundation model for simulating the evaluation of flood-detention respectively. This study tries to respond the urgent issue in urban area and establishes a model of multi-use for public facilities land as flood-detention through the systematic research process of this study. The result of this study can tell which combination of the suitability level is more efficacious. Besides, The model is not only standing on the side of urban planners but also add in the point of view from water agency. Those findings may serve as basis for land use indicators and decision-making references for concerned government agencies.

Keywords: flooding management strategy, land use suitability analysis, multi-use for public facilities land, physiographic inundation model

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Authors: Nino Abesadze, Marine Mindorashvili, Nino Paresashvili

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At present actual tourism indicators cannot be calculated in Georgia, making it impossible to perform their quantitative analysis. Therefore, the study conducted by us is highly important from a theoretical as well as practical standpoint. The main purpose of the article is to make complex statistical analysis of tourist expenses of foreign visitors and to calculate statistical attractiveness indices of the tourism potential of Georgia. During the research, the method involving random and proportional selection has been applied. Computer software SPSS was used to compute statistical data for corresponding analysis. Corresponding methodology of tourism statistics was implemented according to international standards. Important information was collected and grouped from major Georgian airports, and a representative population of foreign visitors and a rule of selection of respondents were determined. The results show a trend of growth in tourist numbers and the share of tourists from post-soviet countries are constantly increasing. The level of satisfaction with tourist facilities and quality of service has improved, but still we have a problem of disparity between the service quality and the prices. The design of tourist expenses of foreign visitors is diverse; competitiveness of tourist products of Georgian tourist companies is higher. Attractiveness of popular cities of Georgia has increased by 43%.

Keywords: tourist, expenses, indexes, statistics, analysis

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Authors: Mandisi Matyana

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Although the South African local government is doing all the best in ensuring improved service delivery for the citizens, service delivery disparity still remains the real challenge for other municipalities. The unequal distribution of services within municipal wards is causing unequal happiness among the citizens; hence others do enjoy different provided municipal services, while others do not. It is acknowledged that less access to municipal services infringes one’s rights, such as the right to human dignity and the right to life. Some of the municipal services are basic services and they are the mainstay of human survival, such as water, housing, etc. It is quite evident that the service delivery disparity could be caused by the various factors within the local municipality affairs, including both administrative and political factors. Therefore, this study is undertaken to check and evaluate the main foundations of service delivery disparity in ensuring equal development of the state, particularly for local communities. The study used the qualitative method to collect the data from the citizens of Winnie Madikizela Mandela Local Municipality. An extensive literature was also conducted in understanding the causes of service delivery disparity. Study findings prove that the service delivery disparity could be caused by factors such as political interference in administration, corruption and fraud, elevated unemployment levels, inadequate institutional capacity, etc. Therefore, the study recommends strong community participation and constant external supervision in the local government so as to encourage openness in local government to ensure fair administration towards services to be provided.

Keywords: administration, development, municipal services, service delivery disparity, Winnie Madikizela Mandela local municipality

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Authors: Amir Rashid

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Today is the world of innovation and Cloud Computing is becoming a day to day technology with every passing day offering remarkable services and features on the go with rapid elasticity. This platform took business computing into an innovative dimension where clients interact and operate through service provider web portals. Initially, the trust relationship between client and service provider remained a big question but with the invention of several cryptographic paradigms, it is becoming common in everyday business. This research work proposes a solution for building a cloud storage service with respect to Data Security addressing public cloud infrastructure where the trust relationship matters a lot between client and service provider. For the great satisfaction of client regarding high-end Data Security, this research paper propose a layer of cryptographic primitives combining several architectures in order to achieve the goal. A survey has been conducted to determine the benefits for such an architecture would provide to both clients/service providers and recent developments in cryptography specifically by cloud storage.

Keywords: data security in cloud computing, cloud storage architecture, cryptographic developments, token key

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Authors: Flevy Lasrado

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between the service quality dimensions and model them to propose quality improvements using interpretive structural modelling (ISM). Methodology: This paper used an interpretive structural modelling (ISM). The data was collected from the expert opinions that included a questionnaire. The detailed method of using ISM is discussed in the paper. Findings: The present research work provides an ISM based model to understand the relationships among the service quality dimensions. Practical implications or Original Value: An ISM based model has been developed for healthcare facility for improving customer satisfaction and increasing market share. Although there is lot of research on SERVQUAL model adapted to healthcare sector, no study has been done to understand the interactions among these dimensions. So the major contribution of this research work is the development of contextual relationships among identified variables through a systematic framework. The present research work provides an ISM based model to understand the relationships among the service quality dimensions.

Keywords: SERQUAL, healthcare, quality, service quality

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Authors: Yoonjung An, Yongtae Park

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Offering a Product-Service System (PSS) is a well-accepted strategy that companies may adopt to provide a set of systemic solutions to customers. PSSs were initially provided in a simple form but now take diversified and complex forms involving multiple services, products and technologies. With the growing interest in the PSS, frameworks for the PSS development have been introduced by many researchers. However, most of the existing frameworks fail to examine various relations existing in a complex PSS. Since designing a complex PSS involves full integration of multiple products and services, it is essential to identify not only product-service relations but also product-product/ service-service relations. It is also equally important to specify how they are related for better understanding of the system. Moreover, as customers tend to view their purchase from a more holistic perspective, a PSS should be developed based on the whole system’s requirements, rather than focusing only on the product requirements or service requirements. Thus, we propose a framework to develop a complex PSS that is coordinated fully with the requirements of both worlds. Specifically, our approach adopts a multi-domain matrix (MDM). A MDM identifies not only inter-domain relations but also intra-domain relations so that it helps to design a PSS that includes highly desired and closely related core functions/ features. Also, various dependency types and rating schemes proposed in our approach would help the integration process.

Keywords: inter-domain relations, intra-domain relations, multi-domain matrix, product-service system design

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Authors: Chiedu C. Ifekandu, Olusegun Sangowawa, Jean E. Njab

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Background: Health care providers (HCPs) in Nigeria receive little or no training of the healthcare needs of men who have sex with men (MSM) limiting the quality and effectiveness of comprehensive HIV prevention and treatment services. Consequently, most MSM disguise themselves to access services which limit the quality of care provided partly due to challenges related to stigma and discrimination, and breach of confidentiality. Objective: To assess the knowledge of healthcare providers on effective intervention for MSM. Methods: We trained 122 HIV focal persons drawn from 60 health facilities from twelve Nigerian states. , the participants were requested to complete a pre-training questionnaire to assess their level of working experience with key populations as a baseline. Participants included male and female doctors, nurses and counselors/testers. A test was administered to measure their knowledge on MSM sexual risk practices, HIV prevention and healthcare needs and also to assess their attitudes (including homophobia) and beliefs and how it affects service uptake by key populations particularly MSM prior and immediately after the training to ascertain the impact of the training. Results: The mean age of the HCP was 38 years +/- SD Of the 122 HCPs (45 % female, 55 % male; 85 % counsellor/testers; 15 % doctors and nurses; 92 % working in government facilities) from 42 health facilities were trained, of which 105 attempted the test questions. At the baseline, few HCPs reported any prior sensitivity training on MSM. Most of the HCPs had limited knowledge of MSM sexual health needs. Over 90% of the HCPs believed that homosexuality is a mental illness. 8 % do not consider MSM, FSW and PWID as key populations for HIV infection. 45 % lacked knowledge on MSM anal sexual practices. The post-test showed that homophobic attitudes had decreased significantly by the end of the training; the health care providers have acquired basic knowledge compared to the pre-test. Conclusions: Scaling up MSM sensitivity training for Nigerian HCPs is likely to be a timely and effective means to improve their understanding of MSM-related health issues, reduce homophobic sentiments and enhance their capacity to provide responsive HIV prevention, treatment and care services in a supportive and non-stigmatizing environment.

Keywords: healthcare providers, key population, men who have sex with men, HCT

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Authors: David Hasurungan

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This paper objective is to assess the power distribution reliability improvement by retrofitting obsolete vacuum contactor. The case study in Badak Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant is presented in this paper. To support plant operational, Badak LNG is equipped with 4.16 kV switchgear for supplying the storage and loading facilities, utilities facilities, and train facilities. However, there is a problem in two switch gears of sixteen switch gears. The problem is the obsolescence issue in its vacuum contactor. Not only that, but the same switchgear also has suffered from electrical fault due to contact fingering misalignment. In order to improve the reliability in switchgear, the vacuum contactor retrofit project is done. The retrofit will introduce new vacuum contactor design. The comparison between existing design and the new design is presented in this paper. Meanwhile, The reliability assessment and calculation are performed using software Reliasoft 7.

Keywords: reliability, obsolescence, retrofit, vacuum contactor

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Authors: R. M. Bashir, Sabo Elizabeth

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Electronic learning is an increasingly popular learning approach in higher educational institutions due to vast growth of internet technology. An investigation on the assessment of e-learning facilities and information need by open and distance learning students in Jalingo, Nigeria was conducted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 70 students of the university. Information sourced from the respondents covered demographic, economic and institutional variables. Data collected for demographic variables were computed as frequency count and percentages. Information on assessment of e-learning facilities and information need among open and distance learning students was computed on a three or four point Likert Rating Scale. Findings indicated that there are more men compared to women, a large proportion of the respondents are married and there are more matured students. A high proportion of the students obtained qualifications higher than the secondary school certificate. The proportion of computer literate students was higher compared with those students that owned a computer. Inadequate e-books and reference materials, internet gadgets and inadequate books (hard copies) and reference material are factors that limit utilization of e-learning facilities. Inadequate computer facilities caused delay in examination schedule at the study center. Open and distance learning students required to a high extent information on university timetable and schedule of activities, books (hard and e-books) and reference materials and contact with course coordinators via internet for better learning and academic performance.

Keywords: open and distance learning, information required, electronic books, internet gadgets, Likert scale test

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Authors: Fazilet Alachaher

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Within the constructivist perspective of teaching, which views skilled teaching as knowing what to do in uncertain and unpredictable situations, this research essay explores the topic of reflective teaching by investigating the following questions: (1) What is reflective teaching and why is it important? (2) Why should teachers be trained to be reflective and how can they be prepared to be reflective? (3) What is the role of the teaching context in teachers’ attempts to be reflective? This paper suggests that reflective teaching is important because of the various potential benefits to teaching. Through reflection, teachers can maintain their voices and creativeness thus have authority to affect students, curriculum and school policies. The discussions also highlight the need to prepare student teachers and their professional counterparts to be reflective, so they can develop the characteristics of reflective teaching and gain the potential benefits of reflection. This can be achieved by adopting models and techniques that are based on constructivist pedagogical approaches. The paper also suggests that maintaining teachers’ attempts to be reflective in a workplace context and aligning practice with pre-service teacher education programs require the administrators or the policy makers to provide the following: sufficient time for teachers to reflect and work collaboratively to discuss challenges encountered in teaching, fewer non-classroom duties, regular in-service opportunities, more facilities and freedom in choosing suitable ways of evaluating their students’ progress and needs.

Keywords: creative teaching, reflective teaching, constructivist pedagogical approaches, teaching context, teacher’s role, curriculum and school policies, teaching context effect

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Authors: Anthony Vandarakis

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Today’s International Service Learning practices require an update: modern technologies, fresh educational frameworks, and a new operating system to accountably prosper. This paper describes a model of International Service Learning (ISL), which combines current technological hardware, electronic platforms, and asynchronous communications that are grounded in inclusive pedagogy. This model builds on the work around collaborative field trip learning, extending the reach to international partnerships across continents. Mobile technology, 21^st century skills and summit-basecamp modeling intersect to support novel forms of learning that tread lightly on fragile natural ecosystems, affirm local reciprocal partnership in projects, and protect traveling participants from common yet avoidable cultural pitfalls.

Keywords: International Service Learning, ISL, field experiences, mobile technology, out there in here, summit basecamp pedagogy

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Authors: Azfar Adib

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Like many other countries of the world, mobile internet has been playing a key role in the growth of internet subscriber base in Bangladesh. This study has attempted to identify particular behavioral or usage patterns of 2G mobile internet subscribers who were using the service of the topmost internet service provider (as well as the top mobile operator) of Bangladesh prior to the launching of 3G services (when 2G was fully dominant). It contains some comprehensive analysis carried on different info regarding 2G mobile internet subscribers, obtained from the operator’s own network insights.This is accompanied by the results of a survey conducted among 40 high-frequency users of this service.

Keywords: mobile internet, Symbian, Android, iPhone

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Authors: Minh Thi Hai Vo

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This article draws on in-depth interviews with state employees at public hospitals and universities in its institutional analysis of the autonomy practices of public service delivery units in Vietnam. Unlike many empirical and theoretical studies that view formal and informal institutions as complements or substitutes, this article finds no evidence of complementary or substitutive relationships. Instead, the article finds that formal institutions accommodate informal ones and that informal institutions tend to compete and interfere, with the existing and ineffective formal institutions. The result of such conflicting relationship is that the actual autonomy of public service delivery units is, in most cases, perceived to be greater than the formal autonomy they are given. In the condition of poor regulation, the informal autonomy may result in unethical practices including rent-seeking and corruption. The implication of the study finding is policy-makers need to redesign and reorganize the autonomisation of public service delivery units to make informal institutions support and reinforce formal ones in a complementary manner.

Keywords: autonomy, formal institutions, informal institutions, public service delivery units, Vietnam

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Authors: Yong Xue, Daniel A. Menascé

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Automated and end-to-end network resource management and provisioning for virtual service networks in a multiple autonomous systems (a.k.a multi-AS) environment is a challenging and open problem. This paper proposes a novel, scalable and interoperable high-level architecture that incorporates a number of emerging enabling technologies including Software Defined Network (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Autonomic Computing. The proposed architecture can be used to not only automate network resource management and provisioning for virtual service networks across multiple autonomous substrate networks, but also provide an adaptive capability for achieving optimal network resource management and maintaining network-level end-to-end network performance as well. The paper argues that this SDN and autonomic computing based architecture lays a solid foundation that can facilitate the development of the future Internet based on the pluralistic paradigm.

Keywords: virtual network, software defined network, virtual service network, adaptive resource management, SOA, multi-AS, inter-domain

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Authors: Abdulai Afolabi Ahmed

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The research was undertaken to examine the influence of sports facilities, equipment, and nutrition on athletes' performance in West-Africa Universities Games (WAUG) with the objectives of finding the areas of success and failure. Relevant literatures were reviewed. The survey research design was adopted for the study. Availability of facilities, equipment and nutrition questionnaire (AFENQ) was administered on hundred (n-100) participants - athletes from five Nigerian Universities from South-West, Nigeria which included Federal University of Technology, Akure, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Lagos State University, Oyo, Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago-Awoye and Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti. Nigeria. The tests re-test reliability value obtained from the instrument using Pearson Product Moment Correlation co-efficient of 0.86 was used to analyze the result. While the questionnaire collected was subjected to influential descriptive statistics of multiple regression to analyse the data. The results of the data showed that facilities, equipment, and nutrition variables when taken together effectively predict the performance of the athletes during WAUG competitions. The implication is that sports organizers should provide sports resources for the improved performance of the athletes, and that, university managers should employ nutritionist to plan and prepare food for the university athletes before and after major competitions.

Keywords: athletes, equipment, extramural, influence, nutrition, performance

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Authors: Danjuma Bawa

Abstract:

This paper aimed at exploring the capabilities of Location-Allocation model in complementing the strides of the existing physical planning models in the location and distribution of facilities for regional consumption. The paper was designed to provide a blueprint to the Nigerian government and other donor agencies especially the Fertilizer Distribution Initiative (FDI) by the federal government for the revitalization of the terrorism ravaged regions. Theoretical underpinnings of central place theory related to spatial distribution, interrelationships, and threshold prerequisites were reviewed. The study showcased how Location-Allocation Model (L-AM) alongside Central Place Theory (CPT) was applied in Geographic Information System (GIS) environment to; map and analyze the spatial distribution of settlements; exploit their physical and economic interrelationships, and to explore their hierarchical and opportunistic influences. The study was purely spatial qualitative research which largely used secondary data such as; spatial location and distribution of settlements, population figures of settlements, network of roads linking them and other landform features. These were sourced from government ministries and open source consortium. GIS was used as a tool for processing and analyzing such spatial features within the dictum of CPT and L-AM to produce a comprehensive spatial digital plan for equitable and judicious location and distribution of fertilizer deports in the study area in an optimal way. Population threshold was used as yardstick for selecting suitable settlements that could stand as service centers to other hinterlands; this was accomplished using the query syntax in ArcMapTM. ArcGISTM’ network analyst was used in conducting location-allocation analysis for apportioning of groups of settlements around such service centers within a given threshold distance. Most of the techniques and models ever used by utility planners have been centered on straight distance to settlements using Euclidean distances. Such models neglect impedance cutoffs and the routing capabilities of networks. CPT and L-AM take into consideration both the influential characteristics of settlements and their routing connectivity. The study was undertaken in two terrorism ravaged Local Government Areas of Adamawa state. Four (4) existing depots in the study area were identified. 20 more depots in 20 villages were proposed using suitability analysis. Out of the 300 settlements mapped in the study area about 280 of such settlements where optimally grouped and allocated to the selected service centers respectfully within 2km impedance cutoff. This study complements the giant strides by the federal government of Nigeria by providing a blueprint for ensuring proper distribution of these public goods in the spirit of bringing succor to these terrorism ravaged populace. This will ardently at the same time help in boosting agricultural activities thereby lowering food shortage and raising per capita income as espoused by the government.

Keywords: central place theory, GIS, location-allocation, network analysis, urban and regional planning, welfare economics

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Authors: Mohammad Shahjahan, Md. Monoarul Haque

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In the research work information and data were collected from both types of sources, direct and indirect. Numerological, qualitative and participatory analysis methods have been followed. There were two principal sources of collecting information and data. Firstly, the data provided by the service recipients (300 nos. of women and children victims) in the Victim Support Centre and service providing policemen, executives and staffs (60 nos.). Secondly, data collected from Specialists, Criminologists and Sociologists involved in victim support services through Consultative Interview, KII, Case Study and FGD etc. The initial data collection has been completed with the help of questionnaires as per strategic variations and with the help of guidelines. It is to be noted that the main objective of this research was to determine whether services provided to the victims for their facilities, treatment/medication and rehabilitation by different government/non-government organizations was veritable at all. At the same time socio-economic background and demographic characteristics of the victims have also been revealed through this research. The results of the study show that although the number of victims has increased gradually due to socio-economic, political and cultural realities in Bangladesh, the number of victim support centers has not increased as expected. Awareness among the victims about the effectiveness of the 8 centers working in this regard is also not up to the mark. Two thirds of the victims coming to get service were not cognizant regarding the victim support services at all before getting the service. Most of those who have finally been able to come under the services of the Victim Support Center through various means, have received sheltering (15.5%), medical services (13.32%), counseling services (13.10%) and legal aid (12.66%). The opportunity to stay in security custody and psycho-physical services were also notable. Usually, women and children from relatively poor and marginalized families of the society come to victim support center for getting services. Among the women, young unmarried women are the biggest victims of crime. Again, women and children employed as domestic workers are more affected. A number of serious negative impacts fall on the lives of the victims. Being deprived of employment opportunities (26.62%), suffering from psycho-somatic disorder (20.27%), carrying sexually transmitted diseases (13.92%) are among them. It seems apparent to urgently enact distinct legislation, increase the number of Victim Support Centers, expand the area and purview of services and take initiative to increase public awareness and to create mass movement.

Keywords: crime, victim, support, Bangladesh

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