Search results for: web service composition

Authors: Muhammad Waqas

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In this competitive environment, organizations in the service sector and industrial sector are trying their best to win the loyalty of their customers by providing superior quality services and innovative products to remain competitive in the market. The objective of this study is to focus on the concept that public dealing and tripping of electricity have a significant impact on customer satisfaction. This study is focused on the banking sector. It is concluded that quality in service sectors strongly depends on employees' commitment to the organization for providing superior services to the customers to enhance customers' satisfaction.

Keywords: customer complaints, banking sector, customer satisfaction, Islamic banking

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Authors: Sarah Jorjani, Afshin Ghelichi, Mazyar Kamali

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The aim of this study was to estimate the effect of addition of ginger and red pepper and their mixture in diet on growth performance, survival rate and body composition of Astronotus ocellatus (Oscar fish). This study had been carried out for 8 weeks. For this reason 132 oscar fishes with intial weight of 2.44±0.26 (gr) were divided into 4 treatments with three replicate as compeletly randomize design test and fed by 100% Biomar diet (T1), Biomar + red pepper (55 mg/kg) (T2), Biomar + ginger (1%) (T3) and Biomar + mixture of red pepper and ginger (T4).The fish were fed in 5% of their body weight. The results showed T2 have significant differences in most of growth parameters in compare with other treatments, such as PBWI, SGR, PER and SR (P < 0.05), but there were no significant differences between treatments in FCR and FE (P > 0.05).

Keywords: red pepper, ginger, oscar fish, growth performance, body composition

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Authors: Gulderen Saglam

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This study explores the elements of personal motivation which influence professional motivation of in-service English language teachers in Bursa in Turkey. Fifty English language teachers participated in a seminar held on ‘teachers’ motivation’ for the length of six hours in two days, which were organized by the local Ministry of Education. During the seminar, teachers firstly aimed to share cornerstones of their professional motivation. Later, those teachers stated the significance of their personal motivation. Two months’ later, those teachers were given the questionnaire including both closed and open-ended questions involving those two types of motivational acts of teachers. Questionnaire items were tested by Crombah’s Alfa Reliability Statistics. Responses to the questionnaire were analyzed by factor analysis and test of normality. The results were also tested by non-parametric and parametric tests. As a result, it was found that language teachers who were personally motivated reported higher professional motivation of theirs in teaching profession in-service.

Keywords: influencing factor, in-service-teachers, personal motivation, professional motivation, in-service-teachers, influencing factor

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Authors: Iraj Mantegh, Charles Vidal

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This paper considers Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management system from a service-oriented architecture point of view and proposes a framework for its performance requirements. The architecture specifically considered is related to the Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Traffic Management that is adapted by Transport Canada, in close collaboration with other jurisdictions in the United States and European Union. First, the functional performances for each individual service that comprises the Traffic Management system are defined here, and then quantitative parameters to gauge the performances of individual services are proposed.

Keywords: UAV, drone, UAS, traffic management, UTM

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Authors: Qiang Fu, Abu Saleh

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Research studies are highly fragmented when an innovation management framework is being discussed. With the aim to identify an innovation management framework/assessment tool suitable for small & medium enterprises (SMEs) in the service industry, this researcher critically reviewed existing innovation management frameworks and assessment models/tools and discovered a number of literature gaps. It is established that existing literature lacks generally agreed innovation management dimensions, commonly accepted knowledge creation through empirical studies on innovation management in SMEs, effective innovation management performance measurements, and studies on innovation management in the service industry, in particular in retail SMEs. As such, there is a dire need to develop an appropriate firm-level innovation management framework suitable for SMEs in the service industry for a future research project and further study. In addition, this researcher also discussed the significance of establishing such an innovation management framework.

Keywords: innovation management, innovation management framework, innovation management assessment tools, SMEs, service industry

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Authors: G. Lingam, N. Lingam, K. Raghuwaiya

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The reported study focuses on pre-service teachers’ professional development during the teaching practice. The cohort studied comprised participants in their final year in the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science with Graduate Certificate in Education programmes of a university in Fiji. Analysis of the data obtained using a survey questionnaire indicates that overall, the pre-service teachers were satisfied with the practicum experience. This is assumed to demonstrate that the practicum experience contributed well towards their professional preparation for work expected of them in Fiji secondary schools. Participants also identified some concerns as needing attention. To conclude, the paper provides suggestions for improving the preparation of teachers by strengthening the identified areas of the practicum offered by the university. The study has implications for other teacher education providers in small developing island states and even beyond for the purpose of enhancing learning in student teachers’ for future work.

Keywords: pre-service, teacher education, practicum, teachers’ world of work, student teachers

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Authors: Ramanjaneyulu Mogili, G.V.R.K. Acharyulu

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Indian organized retail sector is growing at a faster pace and gaining popularity. Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) reveals that the current market size of Indian retail industry is about US$ 520 billion with for growth rate 14 to 15 percent annually by 2018 the Indian retail sector is likely to grow at a CAGR of 13% to reach a size of US$ 950 billion. Developments in Information Technology have enabled online Retail sector that empowers customers to order products, conduct transactions without the need to interact physically with the retailers. In recent years, the online shopping industry has gained popularity to the point where certain categories of customers would consider buying electronic products online rather than visiting the stores. Conventionally the physical location of a store is seen as a source of competitive advantage. Online Retailing service sites provide virtual shopping space to the customers. Online Retail services are gaining momentum in India, with internet penetration improving in the country and smartphones becoming affordable along with changing lifestyles and preferences of customers. Although online shoppers prefer the convenience and choice available in online shopping, certain issues raised due to the occurrence of service failure. The proposed study attempts to measure the service recovery and failure process of electronic goods in Indian retail channels.

Keywords: service recovery, customer satisfaction, e-shopping, service failure

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Authors: Nattapong Techarattanased

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The purposes of this research are to make comparisons in respect of the behaviors on the use of the services of metered taxi classified by the demographic factor and to study the influence of the recognition on service quality having the effect on usage behaviors of metered taxi services of consumers in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas. The samples used in this research are 400 metered taxi service users in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas and use a questionnaire as the tool for collecting the data. Analysis statistics is mean and multiple regression analysis. Results of the research revealed that the consumers recognize the overall quality of services in each aspect include tangible aspects of the service, responses to customers, assurance on the confidence, understanding and knowing of customers which is rated at the moderate level except the aspect of the assurance on the confidence and trustworthiness which are rated at a high level. For the result of a hypothetical test, it is found that the quality in providing the services on the aspect of the assurance given to the customers has the effect on the usage behaviors of metered taxi services and the aspect of the frequency on the use of the services per month which in this connection. Such variable can forecast at one point nine percent (1.9%). In addition, quality in providing the services and the aspect of the responses to customers have the effect on the behaviors on the use of metered taxi services on the aspect of the expenses on the use of services per month which in this connection, such variable can forecast at two point one percent (2.1%).

Keywords: consumer behavior, metered taxi service, satisfaction, service quality

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Authors: Zhuoyuan Wang, Benson T. H. Lim, Imriyas Kamardeen

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Effective service quality management has long been touted as a means of improving project and organisational performance. Particularly, in construction projects, main contractors are often seen as a broker between clients and subcontractors, and their service quality is thus associated with the overall project affinity and outcomes. While a considerable amount of research has focused on the aspect of clients-main contractors, very little research has been done to explore the effect of contractors’ service quality on subcontractors’ behaviours and so project outcomes. In addressing this gap, this study surveyed 97 subcontractors in the Chinese Construction industry and data was analysed using the Partial Least Square (PLS) Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique. The overall findings reveal that subcontractors categorised main contractors’ service quality into three dimensions: assurance; responsiveness; reliability and empathy. Of these, it is found that main contractors’ ‘assurance’ and ‘responsiveness’ positively influence subcontractors’ intention to engage in contractual behaviours. The results further show that the subcontractors’ intention to engage in organizational citizenship behaviours is associated with how flexible and committed the main contractors are in reliability and empathy. Collectively, both subcontractors’ contractual and organizational citizenship behaviours positively influence the overall project outcomes. In conclusion, the findings inform contractors different strategies towards managing and gaining subcontractors’ behaviour commitment in a socially connected, yet complex and uncertain, business environment.

Keywords: construction firms, organisational citizenship behaviour, service quality, social exchange theory

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Authors: Dimitra Alexiou

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In an urban area the allocation placement of an emergency service mobile units, such as ambulances, police patrol must be designed so as to achieve a prompt response to demand locations. In this paper, a partition of a given urban network into distinct sub-networks is performed such that; the vertices in each component are close and simultaneously the difference of the sums of the corresponding population in the sub-networks is almost uniform. The objective here is to position appropriately in each sub-network a mobile emergency unit in order to reduce the response time to the demands. A mathematical model in the framework of graph theory is developed. In order to clarify the corresponding method a relevant numerical example is presented on a small network.

Keywords: graph partition, emergency service, distances, location

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Authors: Johannes Atug, Stefan Braunreuther, Gunther Reinhart

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Volatile markets, as well as increasing global competition in manufacturing, lead to a high demand of flexible and agile production systems. These advanced production systems in turn conduct to high capital expenditure along with high investment risks. Developments in production regarding digitalization and cyber-physical systems result to a merger of informational- and operational technology. The approach of this paper is to benefit from this merger and present a framework of a production network with scalable production capacity and low capital expenditure by adaptation of the IT concept 'everything as a service' into the production environment.

Keywords: digital manufacturing system, everything as a service, reconfigurable production, value network

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Authors: Abdel-Aziz M. Mohamed

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This research proposes a methodology to estimate the customer order lead time in the supply chain based on the process capability index. The cases when the process output is normally distributed and when it is not are considered. The relationships between the system capability indices in both service and manufacturing applications, delivery system reliability and the percentages of orders delivered after their promised due dates are presented. The proposed method can be used to examine the current process capability to deliver the orders before the promised lead-time. If the system was found to be incapable, the method can be used to help revise the current lead-time to a proper value according to the service reliability level selected by the management. Numerical examples and a case study describing the lead time estimation methodology and testing the system capability of delivering the orders before their promised due date are illustrated.

Keywords: lead-time estimation, process capability index, delivery system reliability, statistical analysis, service achievement index, service quality

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Authors: Shan-Ken Chien

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This research aims to share the application of the Music and Narrative Curriculum developed through a college community service-learning course to a special education classroom in a local secondary school. The development of the Music and Narrative Curriculum stems from the music appreciation courses that the author has taught at the university. The curriculum structure consists of three instructional phases, each with three core literacy. This study will show the implementation of an eighteen-week general music education course, including classroom training on the university campus and four intervention music lessons in a special education classroom. Students who participated in the Music and Narrative Curriculum came from two different parts. One is twenty-five college students enrolling in Music Literacy and Community Service-Learning, and the other one is nine junior high school students with intellectual disabilities (ID) in a special education classroom. This study measures two parts. One is the effectiveness of the Music and Narrative Curriculum in applying four interventions in music lessons in a special education classroom, and the other is measuring college students' service-learning experiences and growth outcomes.

Keywords: college service-learning, general music education, music literacy, narrative skills, students with special needs

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Authors: Edwina Luck, Rory Mulcahy

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This paper explores a distinctive perspective of resources which are integrated to co-destroy transformative value in sport. Combining previously published transformative service research and sports literature with data from twenty in-depth interviews with elite and Olympic rowers, our study uncovers the co-destructive resources of ‘interpersonal misbehavior’ and ‘sport misbehavior’. We also identified transformative value in sport is multi-dimensional, encompassing important benefits that support well-being. This research has important implications for transformative sport service research, recommending the need to embrace a transformative service lens to value, a more holistic understanding of co-destruction, and the need to utilise multi-dimensional frameworks to ensure greater insights into sport and sports services and their impact on sportsperson’s well-being. Gaining this understanding will encourage sport managers, sporting bodies to justify resources that they integrate based upon their impact on co-destruction of value.

Keywords: elite sports, sport misbehavior, transformative sport service research, value co-destruction

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Authors: Malika Yaici, Assia Arab, Betitra Yakouben, Samia Zermani

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Ubiquitous computing is nowadays a reality through the networking of a growing number of computing devices. It allows providing users with context aware information and services in a heterogeneous environment, anywhere and anytime. Selection of the best context-aware service, between many available services and providers, is a tedious problem. In this paper, a service selection method based on Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) formalism is proposed. The services are considered as variables and domains; and the user context, preferences and providers characteristics are considered as constraints. The Backtrack algorithm is used to solve the problem to find the best service and provider which matches the user requirements. Even though this algorithm has an exponential complexity, but its use guarantees that the service, that best matches the user requirements, will be found. A comparison of the proposed method with the existing solutions finishes the paper.

Keywords: ubiquitous computing, services selection, constraint satisfaction problem, backtrack algorithm

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Authors: M. A. Elbagermia, A. I. Alajtala, M. Alkerzab

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This study compares the quality of different brands of Portland Cement (PC) available in Libyan market. The amounts of chemical constituents like SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, CaO, MgO, SO3, and Lime Saturation Factor (LSF) were determined in accordance with Libyan (L.S.S) and Amrican (A.S.S) Standard Specifications. All the cement studies were found to be good for concrete work especially where no special property is required. The chemical and mineralogical analyses for studied clinker samples show that the dominant phases composition are C3S and C2S while the C3A and C4AF are less abundant.

Keywords: Portland cement, chemical composition, Libyan market, X-Ray fluorescence

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Authors: K. O. Igwe, E. N. Onyeike, A. A. Uwakwe

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Comparative proximate composition of selected edible vegetables (Abelmoschus esculentus, Telfairia occidentalis, vernonia amygdalina and Talinum triangulare ) harvested in farmland nearby oil impacted sites in Rivers State was investigated. The result obtained was compared to the proximate composition of similar edible vegetables harvested from non oil producing areas in Imo State. Values from the study areas indicated vegetables with high moisture levels (highest values in Abelmoschus esculentus and Telfairia occidentalis; 6.07±0.11% and 4.10±0.12%) low ash contents (lowest value in Telfairia occidentalis 9.80±0.08%) low crude protein (lowest value in Talinum triangulare 8.15±0.06 %) high lipid content (highest value in Talinum triangulare 4.12± 0.20%) lower crude fibre (lowest value in Abelmoschus esculentus 9.58±0.08 %) and higher Carbohydrate contents (highest value in vernonia amygdalina 62.18± 0.67%). Values obtained indicated vegetables with lower quality in the study areas.

Keywords: edible vegetables, proximate composition, oil spill, farmland

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Authors: Bindya Jacob

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The aim of the present study was to assess the quality of catchup growth induced by Oral Nutrition Supplement (ONS), in animal model of growth restriction due to under nutrition. Quality of catch-up growth was assessed by proportion of lean body mass (LBM) and fat mass (FM). Young SD rats were food restricted at 70% of normal caloric intake for 4 weeks; and re-fed at 120% of normal caloric intake for 4 weeks. Refeeding diet had 50% calories from animal diet and 50% from ONS formulated for optimal growth. After refeeding, the quantity and quality of catch-up growth were measured including weight, length, LBM and FM. During nutrient restriction, body weight and length of animals was reduced compared to healthy controls. Both LBM and FM were significantly lower than healthy controls (p < 0.001). Refeeding with ONS resulted in increase of weight and length, with significant catch-up growth compared to baseline (p < 0.001). Detailed examination of body composition showed that the catch-up in body weight was due to proportionate increase of LBM and FM, resulting in a final body composition similar to healthy controls. This data supports the use of well-designed ONS for recovery from growth restriction due to under nutrition, and return to normal growth trajectory characterized by normal ratio of lean and fat mass.

Keywords: catch up growth, body composition, nutrient restriction, healthy growth

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Authors: Ni Putu Evi Wijayanti, Made Darmiati, Ni Ketut Wiwiek Agustina, Putu Gde Arie Yudhistira, Marcel Hardono

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This research study discusses the tourists’ perception to white water rafting service quality in Bali (Case Study: Ayung River). The aim is to determine the tourists’ perception to: firstly, the services quality of white water rafting trip in Bali, secondly, is to determine which dimensions of the service quality that need to take main handling priority in accordance with the level of important service of white water rafting company’s working performance toward the service quality of rafting in Bali especially on Ayung Riveri, lastly, is to know the efforts are needed to improve the service quality of white water rafting trip for tourist in Bali, specifically on Ayung River. This research uses the concept of the service quality with five principal dimensions, namely: Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy. Location of the research is tourist destination area of the Ayung River, that lies between the boundary of Badung Regency at Western part and Gianyar Regency eastern side. There are three rafting companies located on the Ayung River. This research took 100 respondents who were selected as a sample by using purposive sampling method. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed to domestic tourists then tabulated using the weighting scale (Likert scale) and analyzed using analysis of the benefit performance (important performance analysis) in the form of Cartesian diagram. The results of the research are translated into three points. Firstly, there are 23 indicators assessed by the service aspect of domestic tourists where the highest value is the aspect of familiarity between the tourist and employees with points (0.29) and the lowest score is the aspect of the clarity of the Ayung River water discharge value (-0.35). This shows that the indicator has not been fully able to meet the expectations of service aspects of the rating. Secondly, the dimensions of service quality that requires serious attention is the dimension of tangibles. The third point is the efforts that needs to be done adapted to the results of the Cartesian diagram breaks down into four quadrants. Based on the results of the research suggested to the manager of the white water rafting tour in order to continuously improve the service quality to tourists, performing new innovations in terms of product variations, provide insight and training to its employees to increase their competence, especially in the field of excellent service so that the satisfaction rating can be achieved.

Keywords: perception, rafting, service quality, tourist satisfaction

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Authors: Elizabeta Sivevska, Sunchica Petrovska, Vaska Antevska, Lidija Todorovska, Sanja Manchevska, Beti Dejanova, Ivanka Karagjozova, Jasmina Pluncevic Gligoroska

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Introduction: Body composition plays an important role in the selection of young soccer players and it is associated with their successful performance. The most commonly used model of body composition divides the body into two compartments: fat components and fat-free mass (muscular and bone components). The aims of the study were to determine the body composition parameters of young male soccer players and to show the differences in age groups. Material and methods: A sample of 52 young male soccer players, with an age span from 9 to 14 years were divided into two groups according to the age (group 1 aged 9 to 12 years and group 2 aged 12 to 14 years). Anthropometric measurements were taken according to the method of Mateigka. The following measurements were made: body weight, body height, circumferences (arm, forearm, thigh and calf), diameters (elbow, knee, wrist, ankle) and skinfold thickness (biceps, triceps, thigh, leg, chest, abdomen). The measurements were used in Mateigka’s equations. Results: Body mass components were analyzed as absolute values (in kilograms) and as percentage values: the muscular component (MC kg and MC%), the bone component (BCkg and BC%) and the body fat (BFkg and BF%). The group up to 12 years showed the following mean values of the analyzed parameters: MM=21.5kg; MM%=46.3%; BC=8.1kg; BC%=19.1%; BF= 6.3kg; BF%= 15.7%. The second group aged 12-14 year had mean values of body composition parameters as follows: MM=25.6 kg; MM%=48.2%; BC = 11.4 kg; BC%=21.6%; BF= 8.5 kg; BF%= 14. 7%. Conclusions: The young soccer players aged 12 up to 14 years who are in the pre-pubertal phase of growth and development had higher bone component (p<0.05) compared to younger players. There is no significant difference in muscular and fat body component between the two groups of young soccer players.

Keywords: body composition, young soccer players, body fat, fat-free mass

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Authors: Maria Bercea, Bernhard A. Wolf

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The thermodynamic behavior for solutions of poly (methyl methacrylate-ran-t-butyl methacrylate) of variable composition as compared with the corresponding homopolymers was investigated by light scattering measurements carried out for dilute solutions and vapor pressure measurements of concentrated solutions. The complex dependencies of the Flory Huggins interaction parameter on concentration and copolymer composition in solvents of different polarity (toluene and chloroform) can be understood by taking into account the ability of the polymers to rearrange in a response to changes in their molecular surrounding. A recent unified thermodynamic approach was used for modeling the experimental data, being able to describe the behavior of the different solutions by means of two adjustable parameters, one representing the effective number of solvent segments and another one accounting for the interactions between the components. Thus, it was investigated how the solvent quality changes with the composition of the copolymers through the Gibbs energy of mixing as a function of polymer concentration. The largest reduction of the Gibbs energy at a given composition of the system was observed for the best solvent. The present investigation proves that the new unified thermodynamic approach is a general concept applicable to homo- and copolymers, independent of the chain conformation or shape, molecular and chemical architecture of the components and of other dissimilarities, such as electrical charges.

Keywords: random copolymers, Flory Huggins interaction parameter, Gibbs energy of mixing, chemical architecture

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Authors: Andrew Enaifoghe

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Municipalities are the most fundamental units of governance, and they are responsible for providing basic services and supporting growth in the areas they rule. South African local government is primarily understood in terms of service delivery, and the South African constitution provides municipalities with the responsibility of mobilizing economic resources, to better the lives of all people. Essential public services are the primary pillars of enhanced quality of life, and appropriate supplies of safe water and sanitation are required for life, well-being, and human dignity. Therefore, having access to basic services is directly tied to social inclusion and social capital, and towns' inability to offer services can have a negative influence on social and economic growth. The problem of service delivery is seen as one of the biggest challenges facing South African municipalities today. This study attempts to assess South African municipal service delivery. Focusing on the main causes of service delivery challenges, the study also looks at the impact of these challenges to identify ways to minimize such challenges by introducing legal instruments such as municipal budgeting and annual reports. A qualitative design was adopted, and data were collected using a desktop technique and analyzed based on content. While public engagement in municipal affairs is required by law, considerable work has to be done to ensure successful participation. Finally, municipalities were deemed to need to do more to improve human capacity to offer services.

Keywords: municipalities, service delivery, corruption, monitoring, South Africa

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Authors: Shyam Shukla

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A brand is the identity of a specific product, service or business. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color, combination or slogan. The word brand began simply as a way to tell one person's identity from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark. The word brand has continued to evolve to encompass identity - it affects the personality of a product, company or service. A concept brand is a brand that is associated with an abstract concept, like AIDS awareness or environmentalism, rather than a specific product, service, or business. A commodity brand is a brand associated with a commodity1. In this paper, it is tried to explore the significance of an intellectual capital for the branding of an Institution.

Keywords: brand, commodity, consumer, cultural values, intellectual capital, zonal cluster

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Authors: Vita Strazdina, Aleksandrs Jemeljanovs, Vita Sterna

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Not all proteins have the same nutritional value, since protein quality strongly depends on its amino acid composition and digestibility. The meat of game animals could be a high protein source because of its well-balanced essential amino acids composition. Investigations about biochemical composition of game meat such as wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and beaver (Castor fiber) are not very much. Therefore, the aim of the investigation was evaluate protein composition of game meat hunted in Latvia. The biochemical analysis, evaluation of connective tissue and essential amino acids in meat samples were done, the amino acids score were calculate. Results of analysis showed that protein content 20.88-22.05% of all types of meat samples is not different statistically. The content of connective tissue from 1.3% in roe deer till 1.5% in beaver meat allowed classified game animal as high quality meat. The sum of essential amino acids in game meat samples were determined 7.05–8.26g100g-1. Roe deer meat has highest protein content and lowest content of connective tissues among game meat hunted in Latvia. Concluded that amino acid score for limiting amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine is high and shows high biological value of game meat.

Keywords: dietic product, game meat, amino acids, scores

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Authors: M. H. Fazel Zarandi, N. Moshahedi

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The hub location problem appears in a variety of applications such as medical centers, firefighting facilities, cargo delivery systems and telecommunication network design. The location of service centers has a strong influence on the congestion at each of them, and, consequently, on the quality of service. This paper presents a fuzzy maximal hub covering location problem (FMCHLP) in which travel costs between any pair of nodes is considered as a fuzzy variable. In order to consider the quality of service, we model each hub as a queue. Arrival rate follows Poisson distribution and service rate follows Erlang distribution. In this paper, at first, a nonlinear mathematical programming model is presented. Then, we convert it to the linear one. We solved the linear model using GAMS software up to 25 nodes and for large sizes due to the complexity of hub covering location problems, and simulated annealing algorithm is developed to solve and test the model. Also, we used possibilistic c-means clustering method in order to find an initial solution.

Keywords: fuzzy modeling, location, possibilistic clustering, queuing

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Authors: Yao Lu, Xiuguo Zhang, Zhiying Cao

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In this paper, Load Balancing idea is used in the Web service mobile host. The main idea of Load Balancing is to establish a one-to-many mapping mechanism: An entrance-mapping request to plurality of processing node in order to realize the dividing and assignment processing. Because the mobile host is a resource constrained environment, there are some Web services which cannot be completed on the mobile host. When the mobile host resource is not enough to complete the request, Load Balancing scheduler will divide the request into a plurality of sub-requests and transfer them to different auxiliary mobile hosts. Auxiliary mobile host executes sub-requests, and then, the results will be returned to the mobile host. Service request integrator receives results of sub-requests from the auxiliary mobile host, and integrates the sub-requests. In the end, the complete request is returned to the client. Experimental results show that this technology adopted in this paper can complete requests and have a higher efficiency.

Keywords: Dinic, load balancing, mobile host, web service

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Authors: L. Sudbury-Riley, P. Hunter-Jones, L. Menzies, M. Pyrah, H. Knight

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Just as manufacturing firms aim for zero defects, service providers strive to avoid service failures where customer expectations are not met. However, because services comprise unique human interactions, service failures are almost inevitable. Consequently, firms focus on service recovery strategies to fix problems and retain their customers for the future. Because a hospice offers care to terminally ill patients, it may not get the opportunity to correct a service failure. This situation makes the identification of what hospice users really need and want, and to ascertain perceptions of the hospice’s service delivery from the user’s perspective, even more important than for other service providers. A well-documented and fundamental barrier to improving end-of-life care is a lack of service quality measurement tools that capture the experiences of user’s from their own perspective. In palliative care, many quantitative measures are used and these focus on issues such as how quickly patients are assessed, whether they receive information leaflets, whether a discussion about their emotional needs is documented, and so on. Consequently, quality of service from the user’s perspective is overlooked. The current study was designed to overcome these limitations by adapting service blueprinting - never before used in the hospice sector - in order to undertake a ‘deep-dive’ to examine the impact of hospice services upon different users. Service blueprinting is a customer-focused approach for service innovation and improvement, where the ‘onstage’ visible service user and provider interactions must be supported by the ‘backstage’ employee actions and support processes. The study was conducted in conjunction with East Cheshire Hospice in England. The Hospice provides specialist palliative care for patients with progressive life-limiting illnesses, offering services to patients, carers and families via inpatient and outpatient units. Using service blueprinting to identify every service touchpoint, in-depth qualitative interviews with 38 in-patients, outpatients, visitors and bereaved families enabled a ‘deep-dive’ to uncover perceptions of the whole service experience among these diverse users. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and thematic analysis of over 104,000 words of data revealed many excellent aspects of Hospice service. Staff frequently exceed people’s expectations. Striking gratifying comparisons to hospitals emerged. The Hospice makes people feel safe. Nevertheless, the technique uncovered many areas for improvement, including serendipity of referrals processes, the need for better communications with external agencies, improvements amid the daunting arrival and admissions process, a desperate need for more depression counselling, clarity of communication pertaining to actual end of life, and shortcomings in systems dealing with bereaved families. The study reveals that the adapted service blueprinting tool has major advantages of alternative quantitative evaluation techniques, including uncovering the complex nature of service user’s experiences in health-care service systems, highlighting more fully the interconnected configurations within the system and making greater sense of the impact of the service upon different service users. Unlike other tools, this in-depth examination reveals areas for improvement, many of which have already been implemented by the Hospice. The technique has potential to improve experiences of palliative and end-of-life care among patients and their families.

Keywords: hospices, end-of-life-care, service blueprinting, service delivery

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Authors: Noor Khan, Hira Waris

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This study was conducted on genetically male tilapia (GMT) fry reared in glass aquarium for three months to examine the synergetic effect of essential amino acids (EAA) supplementation on growth, body composition, and enzyme activities. Fish having average body weight of 16.56 ± 0.42g were fed twice a day on artificial feed (20% crude protein) procured from Oryza Organics (commercial feed) supplemented with EAA; methionine (M) and lysine (L) designated as T1 (0.3%M and 2%L), T2 (0.6%M and 4%L), T3 (0.9%M and 6%L) and control without EAA. Significantly higher growth performance was observed in T1, followed by T2, T3, and control. The results revealed that whole-body dry matter and crude protein were significantly higher (p ≤ 0.05) in T3 (0.9% and 6%) feeding fish, while the crude fat was lower (p ≤ 0.05) in a similar group of fish. Additionally, protease, amylase, and lipase activities were also observed maximum (p ≤ 0.05) in response to T3 than other treatments and control. However, the EAA, especially lysine and methionine, were found significantly higher (p ≤ 0.05) in T1 compared to other treatments. Conclusively, the addition of EAA, methionine, and lysine in the feed not only enhanced the growth performance of GMT fry but also improved body proximate composition and essential amino acid profile.

Keywords: genetically male tilapia, body composition, digestive enzyme activities, amino acid profile

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Authors: Ahmed Alutaibi, Ganti Sudhakar

Abstract:

Providing better Quality-of-Service (QoS) to end users has been a challenging problem for researchers and service providers. Building applications relying on best effort network protocols hindered the adoption of guaranteed service parameters and, ultimately, Quality of Service. The introduction of Software Defined Networking (SDN) opened the door for a new paradigm shift towards a more controlled programmable configurable behavior. Openflow has been and still is the main implementation of the SDN vision. To facilitate better QoS for applications, the network must calculate and measure certain parameters. One of those parameters is the delay between the two ends of the connection. Using the power of SDN and the knowledge of application and network behavior, SDN networks can adjust to different conditions and specifications. In this paper, we use the capabilities of SDN to implement multiple algorithms to measure delay end-to-end not only inside the SDN network. The results of applying the algorithms on an emulated environment show that we can get measurements close to the emulated delay. The results also show that depending on the algorithm, load on the network and controller can differ. In addition, the transport layer handshake algorithm performs best among the tested algorithms. Out of the results and implementation, we show the limitations of Openflow and develop suggestions to solve them.

Keywords: software defined networking, quality of service, delay measurement, openflow, mininet

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Authors: Xue Xiao, Sun Hao, Liu Donghua

Abstract:

E-commerce is experiencing rapid development and evolution, but traditional research methods are difficult to fully demonstrate the relationship between micro factors and macro evolution in the development process of e-commerce, which cannot provide accurate assessment for the existing strategies and predict the future evolution trends. To solve these problems, this paper presents the concept of e-commerce service ecosystem based on the characteristics of e-commerce and business ecosystem theory, describes e-commerce environment as a complex adaptive system from the perspective of ecology, constructs a e-commerce service ecosystem model by using Agent-based modeling method and Java language in RePast simulation platform and conduct experiment through the way of computational experiment, attempt to provide a suitable and effective researching method for the research on e-commerce evolution. By two experiments, it can be found that system model built in this paper is able to show the evolution process of e-commerce service ecosystem and the relationship between micro factors and macro emergence. Therefore, the system model constructed by Agent-based method and computational experiment provides proper means to study the evolution of e-commerce ecosystem.

Keywords: e-commerce service ecosystem, complex system, agent-based modeling, computational experiment

Procedia PDF Downloads 318