Search results for: public services

Authors: Ahmed Shuhaiber, Hans Lehmann

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Mobile payments have been deployed by businesses for more than a decade. Customers use mobile payments if they trust in this relatively new payment method, have a belief and confidence in, as well as reliance on its services and applications. Despite its potential, the current literature shows that there is lack of customer trust in B2C mobile payments, and a lack of studies that determine the factors that influence their trust in these payments; which make these factors yet to be understood, especially in the Middle East region. Thus, this study aims to explore the factors that influence customer trust in mobile payments. The empirical data for this explorative study was collected by establishing four focus group sessions in the UAE. The results indicate that the explored significant factors can be classified into five main groups: customer characteristics, environmental (social and cultural) influences, provider characteristics, mobile-device characteristics, and perceived risks.

Keywords: B2C mobile payments, Mobile commerce, Mobile payment services and application, Trust in mobile payments.

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Authors: Atousa Khodadadyan, Gabe Mythen, Hirbod Assa, Beverley Bishop

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Risk assessment and the knowledge provided through this process is a crucial part of any decision-making process in the management of risks and uncertainties. Failure in assessment of risks can cause inadequacy in the entire process of risk management, which in turn can lead to failure in achieving organisational objectives as well as having significant damaging consequences on populations affected by the potential risks being assessed. The choice of tools and techniques in risk assessment can influence the degree and scope of decision-making and subsequently the risk response strategy. There are various available qualitative and quantitative tools and techniques that are deployed within the broad process of risk assessment. The sheer diversity of tools and techniques available to practitioners makes it difficult for organisations to consistently employ the most appropriate methods. This tools and techniques adaptation is rendered more difficult in public risk regulation organisations due to the sensitive and complex nature of their activities. This is particularly the case in areas relating to the environment, food, and human health and safety, when organisational goals are tied up with societal, political and individuals’ goals at national and international levels. Hence, recognising, analysing and evaluating different decision support tools and techniques employed in assessing risks in public risk management organisations was considered. This research is part of a mixed method study which aimed to examine the perception of risk assessment and the extent to which organisations practise risk assessment’ tools and techniques. The study adopted a semi-structured questionnaire with qualitative and quantitative data analysis to include a range of public risk regulation organisations from the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The results indicated the public risk management organisations mainly use diverse tools and techniques in the risk assessment process. The primary hazard analysis; brainstorming; hazard analysis and critical control points were described as the most practiced risk identification techniques. Within qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, the participants named the expert judgement, risk probability and impact assessment, sensitivity analysis and data gathering and representation as the most practised techniques.

Keywords: Decision-making, public risk management organisations, risk assessment, tools and techniques.

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Authors: Konstantinos C. Giotopoulos, Christos E. Alexakos, Grigorios N. Beligiannis, Spiridon D.Likothanassis

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In this contribution an innovative platform is being presented that integrates intelligent agents and evolutionary computation techniques in legacy e-learning environments. It introduces the design and development of a scalable and interoperable integration platform supporting: I) various assessment agents for e-learning environments, II) a specific resource retrieval agent for the provision of additional information from Internet sources matching the needs and profile of the specific user and III) a genetic algorithm designed to extract efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students- answering input data. The agents are implemented in order to provide intelligent assessment services based on computational intelligence techniques such as Bayesian Networks and Genetic Algorithms. The proposed Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used in order to extract efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students- answering input data. The idea of using a GA in order to fulfil this difficult task came from the fact that GAs have been widely used in applications including classification of unknown data. The utilization of new and emerging technologies like web services allows integrating the provided services to any web based legacy e-learning environment.

Keywords: Bayesian Networks, Computational Intelligencetechniques, E-learning legacy systems, Service Oriented Integration, Intelligent Agents, Genetic Algorithms.

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Authors: Anders S. Kristensen, Dewan Ahsan, Saqib Mehmood, Shakeel Ahmed

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Traffic accidents are a result of the convergence of hazards, malfunctioning of vehicles and human negligence that have adverse economic and health impacts and effects. Unfortunately, avoiding them completely is very difficult, but with quick response to rescue and first aid, the mortality rate of inflicted persons can be reduced significantly. Smart and innovative technologies can play a pivotal role to respond faster to traffic crash emergencies comparing conventional means of transportation. For instance, Rescue Emergency Drone (RED) can provide faster and real-time crash site risk assessment to emergency medical services, thereby helping them to quickly and accurately assess a situation, dispatch the right equipment and assist bystanders to treat inflicted person properly. To conduct a research in this regard, the case of a traffic roundabout that is prone to frequent traffic accidents on the outskirts of Esbjerg, a town located on western coast of Denmark is hypothetically considered. Along with manual calculations, Emergency Disaster Management Simulation (EDMSIM) has been used to verify the response time of RED from a fire station of the town to the presumed crash site. The results of the study demonstrate the robustness of RED into emergency services to help save lives. 

Keywords: Automated external defibrillator, medical emergency, fire and rescue services, response time, unmanned aerial system.

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Authors: D. Sumathi, P. Poongodi

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Cloud Computing refers to applications delivered as services over the internet, and the datacenters that provide those services with hardware and systems software. These were earlier referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS). Scheduling is justified by job components (called tasks), lack of information. In fact, in a large fraction of jobs from machine learning, bio-computing, and image processing domains, it is possible to estimate the maximum time required for a task in the job. This study focuses on Trust based scheduling to improve cloud security by modifying Heterogeneous Earliest Finish Time (HEFT) algorithm. It also proposes TR-HEFT (Trust Reputation HEFT) which is then compared to Dynamic Load Scheduling.

Keywords: Software as a Service (SaaS), Trust, Heterogeneous Earliest Finish Time (HEFT) algorithm, Dynamic Load Scheduling.

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Authors: Adian Fatchur Rochim, Abdul Muis, Riri Fitri Sari

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H-index has been widely used as a performance indicator of researchers around the world especially in Indonesia. The Government uses Scopus and Google scholar as indexing references in providing recognition and appreciation. However, those two indexing services yield to different H-index values. For that purpose, this paper evaluates the difference of the H-index from those services. Researchers indexed by Webometrics, are used as reference’s data in this paper. Currently, Webometrics only uses H-index from Google Scholar. This paper observed and compared corresponding researchers’ data from Scopus to get their H-index score. Subsequently, some researchers with huge differences in score are observed in more detail on their paper’s publisher. This paper shows that the H-index of researchers in Google Scholar is approximately 2.45 times of their Scopus H-Index. Most difference exists due to the existence of uncertified publishers, which is considered in Google Scholar but not in Scopus.

Keywords: Google Scholar, H-index, Scopus.

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Authors: Pek Chuen-Khee, Jamal Othman

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This paper estimates the economic values of household preference for enhanced solid waste disposal services in Malaysia. The contingent valuation (CV) method estimates an average additional monthly willingness-to-pay (WTP) in solid waste management charges of Ôé¼0.77 to 0.80 for improved waste disposal services quality. The finding of a slightly higher WTP from the generic CV question than that of label-specific, further reveals a higher WTP for sanitary landfill, at Ôé¼0.90, than incineration, at Ôé¼0.63. This suggests that sanitary landfill is a more preferred alternative. The logistic regression estimation procedure reveals that household-s concern of where their rubbish is disposed, age, ownership of house, household income and format of CV question are significant factors in influencing WTP.

Keywords: contingent valuation, logistic regression, solid waste disposal, willingness-to-pay.

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Authors: Pascal Gliesche, Kathrin Seibert, Christian Kowalski, Dominik Domhoff, Max Pfingsthorn, Karin Wolf-Ostermann, Andreas Hein

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Robotic assistance in nursing care is an increasingly important area of research and development. Facing a shortage of labor and an increasing number of people in need of care, the German Nursing Care Innovation Center (Pflegeinnovationszentrum, PIZ) aims to address these challenges from the side of technology. Little is known about nurses experiences with existing robotic assistance systems. Especially nurses perspectives on starting points for the development of robotic solutions, that target recurring burdensome tasks in everyday nursing care, are of interest. This paper presents findings focusing on robotics resulting from an explanatory mixed-methods study on nurses experiences with and their expectations for innovative technologies in nursing care in stationary and ambulant care facilities and hospitals in Germany. Based on the findings, eight scenarios for robotic assistance are identified based on the real needs of practitioners. An initial system addressing a single use-case is described to show perspectives for the use of robots in nursing care.

Keywords: Robotics and automation, engineering management, engineering in medicine and biology, medical services, public healthcare.

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Authors: Sven Borén, Lisiana Nurhadi, Henrik Ny

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From a theoretical perspective, electric buses can be more sustainable and can be cheaper than fossil fuelled buses in city traffic. The authors have not found other studies based on actual urban public transport in Swedish winter climate. Further on, noise measurements from buses for the European market were found old. The aims of this follow-up study was therefore to test and possibly verify in a real-life environment how energy efficient and silent electric buses are, and then conclude on if electric buses are preferable to use in public transport. The Ebusco 2.0 electric bus, fitted with a 311 kWh battery pack, was used and the tests were carried out during November 2014-April 2015 in eight municipalities in the south of Sweden. Six tests took place in urban traffic and two took place in more of a rural traffic setting. The energy use for propulsion was measured via logging of the internal system in the bus and via an external charging meter. The average energy use turned out to be 8% less (0,96 kWh/km) than assumed in the earlier theoretical study. This rate allows for a 320 km range in public urban traffic. The interior of the bus was kept warm by a diesel heater (biodiesel will probably be used in a future operational traffic situation), which used 0,67 kWh/km in January. This verified that electric buses can be up to 25% cheaper when used in public transport in cities for about eight years. The noise was found to be lower, primarily during acceleration, than for buses with combustion engines in urban bus traffic. According to our surveys, most passengers and drivers appreciated the silent and comfortable ride and preferred electric buses rather than combustion engine buses. Bus operators and passenger transport executives were also positive to start using electric buses for public transport. The operators did however point out that procurement processes need to account for eventual risks regarding this new technology, along with personnel education. The study revealed that it is possible to establish a charging infrastructure for almost all studied bus lines. However, design of a charging infrastructure for each municipality requires further investigations, including electric grid capacity analysis, smart location of charging points, and tailored schedules to allow fast charging. In conclusion, electric buses proved to be a preferable alternative for all stakeholders involved in public bus transport in the studied municipalities. However, in order to electric buses to be a prominent support for sustainable development, they need to be charged either by stand-alone units or via an expansion of the electric grid, and the electricity should be made from new renewable sources.

Keywords: Sustainability, Electric, Bus, Noise, GreenCharge.

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Authors: Ahmad Javid Habib, Tetsuo Kidokoro

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There is an increasing demand for developing urban land to provide better living conditions for all citizens in Afghanistan. Most of the development will involve the acquisition of land. And the current land acquisition method practiced by central government is expropriation, which is a cash-based transaction method that imposes heavy fiscal burden on local municipalities and central government, and it does not protect ownership rights and social equity of landowners besides it relocates the urban poor to remote areas with limited access to jobs and public services. The questionnaire analysis, backed by observations of different case studies in countries where land readjustment is used as a collaborative land development tool indicates that the method plays a key role in valuing landowners’ rights, giving other community members and stakeholders the opportunity to collaboratively implement urban development projects. The practice of the method is reducing the heavy fiscal burden on the local and central governments and is a better option to deal with the current development challenges in Afghanistan.

Keywords: Collaboration, land readjustment, master plan, expropriation.

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Authors: Aabiah Nayeem, Fariha Shafiq, Mustabshra Aftab, Rabia Saman Pirzada, Samia Ghazala

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In this modern era of technology, the concept of Internet of Things is very popular in every domain. It is a widely distributed system of things in which the data collected from sensory devices is transmitted, analyzed locally/collectively then broadcasted to network where action can be taken remotely via mobile/web apps. Today’s mobile computing is also gaining importance as the services are provided during mobility. Through mobile computing, data are transmitted via computer without physically connected to a fixed point. The challenge is to provide services with high speed and security. Also, the data gathered from the mobiles must be processed in a secured way. Mobile computing is strongly influenced by internet of things. In this paper, we have discussed security issues and challenges of internet of things and mobile computing and we have compared both of them on the basis of similarities and dissimilarities.

Keywords: Embedded computing, internet of things, mobile computing, and wireless technologies.

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Authors: Alexandra M. Kriofske Mainella

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This paper will examine the need for more aggressive public policies around bodily, reproductive and sexual health education for young people with disabilities in the United States. This paper will consider the policies around sexuality education for students in the United States and the recommendation for national standards around sexuality education. We will investigate the intersection of these policies and recommendations for students with disabilities and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): what this means for students with disabilities’ access to comprehensive sexuality education and how it affects their behaviors and outcomes.

Keywords: Disability, sexuality, education, policy.

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Authors: Yoshifumi Ishizaki, Naoki Kanatani, Masaki Ito, Toshihiko Sasama, Takao Kawamura, Kazunori Sugahara

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This paper demonstrates the bus location system for the route bus through the experiment in the real environment. A bus location system is a system that provides information such as the bus delay and positions. This system uses actual services and positions data of buses, and those information should match data on the database. The system has two possible problems. One, the system could cost high in preparing devices to get bus positions. Two, it could be difficult to match services data of buses. To avoid these problems, we have developed this system at low cost and short time by using the smart phone with GPS and the bus route system. This system realizes the path planning considering bus delay and displaying position of buses on the map. The bus location system was demonstrated on route buses with smart phones for two months.

Keywords: Route Bus, Path Planning System, GPS, Smart Phone.

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Authors: B. Alajmi, L. Marouf, A. S. Chaudhry

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Knowledge management is considered as an important factor in improving health care services. KM facilitates the transfer of existing knowledge and the development of new knowledge in hospitals. This paper reviews practices adopted by doctors in Kuwait for capturing, sharing, and generating knowledge. It also discusses the perceived impact of KM practices on performance of hospitals. Based on a survey of 277 doctors, the study found that KM practices among doctors in the sampled hospitals were not very effective. Little attention was paid to the main activities that support the transfer of expertise among doctors in hospitals. However, as predicted by previous studies, good km practices were perceived by doctors to have a positive impact on performance of hospitals. It was concluded that through effective KM practices hospitals could improve the services they provide. Documentation of best practices and capturing of lessons learnt for re-use of knowledge could help transform the hospitals into learning organizations.

Keywords: Health Sector, Hospitals, Knowledge Management, Kuwait, Tools and Practices.

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Authors: Norazah Mohd Suki, Norbayah Mohd Suki

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Online shopping enables consumers to search for information and purchase products or services through direct interaction with online store. This study aims to examine the effect of Internet marketing environment, product characteristics, familiarity and confidence, and promotional offers on consumer online shopping behavior. 200 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents, who are students and staff at a public university in the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia, following simple random sampling as a means of data collection. Multiple regression analysis was used as a statistical measure to determine the strength of the relationship between one dependent variable and a series of other independent variables. Results revealed that familiarity and confidence was found to greatly influence consumer online shopping behavior followed by promotional offers. A clear understanding of consumer online shopping behavior can help marketing managers predict the online shopping rate and evaluate the future growth of online commerce.

Keywords: Internet Marketing Environment, Product Characteristics, Multiple Regression Analysis, Malaysia.

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Authors: Paraskevi Theodorou, Apostolos Meliones

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In the context of the development process of two assistive navigation mobile apps for blind and visually impaired people (BVI) an extensive qualitative analysis of the requirements of potential users has been conducted. The analysis was based on interviews with BVIs and aimed to elicit not only their needs with respect to autonomous navigation but also their preferences on specific features of the apps under development. The elicited requirements were structured into four main categories, namely, requirements concerning the capabilities, functionality and usability of the apps, as well as compatibility requirements with respect to other apps and services. The main categories were then further divided into nine sub-categories. This classification, along with its content, aims to become a useful tool for the researcher or the developer who is involved in the development of digital services for BVI.

Keywords: Accessibility, assistive mobile apps, blind and visually impaired people, user requirements analysis.

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Authors: Mingook Lee, Sungjoo Lee

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As technology-based service industries grow drastically worldwide; companies are recognizing the importance of market preoccupancy and have made an effort to capture a large market to gain the upper hand. To this end, a focus on patents can be used to determine the properties of a technology, as well as to capture advantages in technical skills, in comparison with the firm’s competitors. However, technology-based services largely depend not only on their technological value but also their economic value, due to the recognized worth that is passed to a plurality of users. Thus, it is important to determine whether there are any competitors in the target areas and what services they provide in any field. Despite this importance, little effort has been made to systematically benchmark competitors in order to identify business opportunities. Thus, this study aims to not only identify each position of technology-centered service companies in complex market dynamics, but also to discover new business opportunities. For this, we try to consider both technology and market environments simultaneously by utilizing patent data as a representative proxy for technology and trademark dates as an index for a firm’s target goods and services. Theoretically, this is one of the earliest attempts to combine patent data and trademark data to analyze corporate strategies. In practice, the research results are expected to be used as a decision criterion to diagnose the economic value that companies can obtain by entering the market, as well as the technological value to be passed onto their customers. Thus, the proposed approach can be useful to support effective technology and business strategies in a firm.

Keywords: Business opportunity, patent, Portfolio analysis, trademark.

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Authors: Ana Hol

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Digital systems are in the Cognitive wave of the eTransformations and are now extensively aimed at meeting the individuals’ demands, both those of customers requiring services and those of service providers. It is also apparent that successful future systems will not just simply open doors to the traditional owners/users to offer and receive services such as Uber, for example, does today, but will in the future require more customized and cognitively enabled infrastructures that will be responsive to the system user’s needs. To be able to identify what is required for such systems this research reviews the historical and the current effects of the eTransformation process by studying: 1. eTransitions of company websites and mobile applications, 2. Emergence of new shared economy business models such as Uber, and 3. New requirements for demand driven, cognitive systems capable of learning and just-in-time decision-making. Based on the analysis, this study proposes a Cognitive eTransformation Framework capable of guiding implementations of new responsive and user aware systems.

Keywords: System implementations, AI supported systems, cognitive systems, eTransformation.

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Authors: Jintana Khemprasit, Vatcharaporn Esichaikul

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Crime is a major societal problem for most of the world's nations. Consequently, the police need to develop new methods to improve their efficiency in dealing with these ever increasing crime rates. Two of the common difficulties that the police face in crime control are crime investigation and the provision of crime information to the general public to help them protect themselves. Crime control in police operations involves the use of spatial data, crime data and the related crime data from different organizations (depending on the nature of the analysis to be made). These types of data are collected from several heterogeneous sources in different formats and from different platforms, resulting in a lack of standardization. Moreover, there is no standard framework for crime data collection, integration and dissemination through mobile devices. An investigation into the current situation in crime control was carried out to identify the needs to resolve these issues. This paper proposes and investigates the use of service oriented architecture (SOA) and the mobile spatial information service in crime control. SOA plays an important role in crime control as an appropriate way to support data exchange and model sharing from heterogeneous sources. Crime control also needs to facilitate mobile spatial information services in order to exchange, receive, share and release information based on location to mobile users anytime and anywhere.

Keywords: Crime Control, Geographic Information System (GIS), Mobile GIS, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

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Authors: Jacqueline P. Davies

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Introduction: Student nurses must develop skills in observation, communication and reflection as well as public health knowledge from their first year of training. This paper will explain a method developed for students to collect their own findings about public health in urban areas. These areas are both rich in the history of old public health that informs the content of many traditional public health walks, but are also locations where new public health concerns about chronic disease are concentrated. The learning method explained in this paper enables students to collect their own data and write original work as first year students. Examples of their findings will be given. Methodology: In small groups, health care students are instructed to walk in neighbourhoods near to the hospitals they will soon attend as apprentice nurses. On their walks, they wander slowly, engage in conversations, and enter places open to the public. As they drift, they observe with all five senses in the real three dimensional world to collect data for their reflective accounts of old and new public health. They are encouraged to stop for refreshments and taste, as well as look, hear, smell, and touch while on their walk. They reflect as a group and later develop an individual reflective account in which they write up their deep reflections about what they observed on their walk. In preparation for their walk, they are encouraged to look at studies of quality of Life and other neighbourhood statistics as well as undertaking a risk assessment for their walk. Findings: Reflecting on their walks, students apply theoretical concepts around social determinants of health and health inequalities to develop their understanding of communities in the neighbourhoods visited. They write about the treasured historical architecture made of stone, bronze and marble which have outlived those who built them; but also how the streets are used now. The students develop their observations into thematic analyses such as: what we drink as illustrated by the empty coke can tossed into a now disused drinking fountain; the shift in home-life balance illustrated by streets where families once lived over the shop which are now walked by commuters weaving around each other as they talk on their mobile phones; and security on the street, with CCTV cameras placed at regular intervals, signs warning trespasses and barbed wire; but little evidence of local people watching the street. Conclusion: In evaluations of their first year, students have reported the health walk as one of their best experiences. The innovative approach was commended by the UK governing body of nurse education and it received a quality award from the nurse education funding body. This approach to education allows students to develop skills in the real world and write original work.

Keywords: Education, innovation. nursing, urban.

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Authors: Lien-Fa Lin, Yung-Ming Li, Fu-Shun Hsieh

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With the advancement of information technology and development of group commerce, people have obviously changed in their lifestyle. However, group commerce faces some challenging problems. The products or services provided by vendors do not satisfactorily reflect customers’ opinions, so that the sale and revenue of group commerce gradually become lower. On the other hand, the process for a formed customer group to reach group-purchasing consensus is time-consuming and the final decision is not the best choice for each group members. In this paper, we design a social decision support mechanism, by using group discussion message to recommend suitable options for group members and we consider social influence and personal preference to generate option ranking list. The proposed mechanism can enhance the group purchasing decision making efficiently and effectively and venders can provide group products or services according to the group option ranking list.

Keywords: Social network, group decision, text mining, group commerce.

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Authors: Ie-jung Choi

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Since the feasibility study of R&D programs have been initiated for efficient public R&D investments, year 2008, feasibility studies have improved in terms of precision. Although experience related to these studies of R&D programs have increased to a certain point, still methodological improvement is required. The feasibility studies of R&D programs are consisted of various viewpoints, such as technology, policy, and economics. This research is to provide improvement methods to the economic perspective; especially the cost estimation process of R&D activities. First of all, the fundamental concept of cost estimation is reviewed. After the review, a statistical and econometric analysis method is applied as empirical analysis. Conclusively, limitations and further research directions are provided.

Keywords: Cost Estimation, R&D Program, Feasibility AnalysisStudy.

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Authors: Petronella Jonck, Freda van der Walt

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Despite the benefits of innovation diffusion in the South African public service, implementation thereof seems to be problematic, particularly with regard to e-governance which would enhance the quality of service delivery, especially accessibility, choice, and mode of operation. This paper reports on differences between the public service and the private sector in terms of innovation diffusion. Innovation diffusion will be investigated to explore identified obstacles that are hindering successful implementation of e-governance. The research inquiry is underpinned by the diffusion of innovation theory, which is premised on the assumption that innovation has a distinct channel, time, and mode of adoption within the organisation. A comparative thematic document analysis was conducted to investigate organisational differences with regard to innovation diffusion. A similar approach has been followed in other countries, where the same conceptual framework has been used to guide document analysis in studies in both the private and the public sectors. As per the recommended conceptual framework, three organisational characteristics were emphasised, namely the external characteristics of the organisation, the organisational structure, and the inherent characteristics of the leadership. The results indicated that the main difference in the external characteristics lies in the focus and the clientele of the private sector. With regard to organisational structure, private organisations have veto power, which is not the case in the public service. Regarding leadership, similarities were observed in social and environmental responsibility and employees’ attitudes towards immediate supervision. Differences identified included risk taking, the adequacy of leadership development, organisational approaches to motivation and involvement in decision making, and leadership style. Due to the organisational differences observed, it is recommended that differentiated strategies be employed to ensure effective innovation diffusion, and ultimately e-governance. It is recommended that the results of this research be used to stimulate discussion on ways to improve collaboration between the mentioned sectors, to capitalise on the benefits of each sector.

Keywords: E-governance, ICT, innovation diffusion, comparative analysis.

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Authors: Wanida Suwunniponth

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The objectives of this research paper were to study the expectation and satisfaction of tourists in five tourism service quality dimensions, namely, website quality, service ability, trust ability, customer empathy, and responsiveness to customer and also to study the influences of satisfaction affecting loyalty toward quality service of the online tourism enterprises located in Bangkok Thailand. This research utilized both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In terms of quantitative method, a questionnaire was used as a tool to collect data from 400 tourists who were using in online travel services. Statistics analysis included descriptive statistics, t-test and Multiple Regression Analysis. In terms of qualitative analysis, an in-depth interview and content analysis were used along with 10 individual management levels of e-commerce enterprises.

The results revealed that the respondents had higher expectations than their level of satisfaction in all five categories. However, the respondents were more satisfied with online travel services than without online service. The demographic factors such as gender and age had no influence on the level of satisfaction whereas the demographic factors of education, occupation, and income had influenced the level of satisfaction. The test results also indicated that the level of satisfaction from responsiveness to customer had the highest influence on the loyalty of tourists who used online travel. The level of satisfaction from customer empathy had the highest influence on the tourists to recommend others to use online travel services. Also, the level of satisfaction from service ability had the highest influence on tourists to take an actual trip.

Keywords: Satisfaction, Loyalty, Service Quality, Online Tourism Enterprises.

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Authors: Manal Rauf

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Trained medical practitioners are produced from medical colleges serving in public and private sectors. Prime responsibility of teaching faculty is to inculcate required work ethic among the students by serving as role models for them. It is an observed fact that classroom incivility behaviours are providing a friction in achieving these targets. Present study aimed at identification of classroom incivility behaviours observed by teachers and students of public and private medical colleges as per Glasser’s Choice Theory, making a comparison and investigating the strategies being adopted by teachers of both sectors to control undesired class room behaviours. Findings revealed that a significant difference occurs between teacher and student incivility behaviours. Public sector teacher focussed on survival as a strong factor behind in civil behaviours whereas private sector teachers considered power as the precedent for incivility. Teachers of both sectors are required to use verbal as well as non-verbal immediacy to reach a healthy leaning environment.

Keywords: Classroom incivility behaviour, Glasser choice theory, Mehrabian immediacy theory, medical student.

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Authors: Cristina Sanchez-Sanchez

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Although there seems to be a growing interest in the study of the citizen’s happiness as an alternative measure of a country’s progress to GDP, happiness as a public concern is still an ambiguous concept, hard to define. Moreover, different notions are used indiscriminately to talk about the same thing. This investigation aims to determine the conceptions of happiness, well-being and quality of life that originate from the indexes that different governments and public institutions around the world have created to study them. Through the Scoping Review method, this study identifies the recent academic research in this field (a total of 267 documents between 2006 and 2016) from some of the most popular social sciences databases around the world, Web of Science, Scopus, JSTOR, Sage, EBSCO, IBSS and Google Scholar, and in Spain, ISOC and Dialnet. These 267 documents referenced 53 different indexes and researches. The Grounded Theory method has been applied to a sample of 13 indexes in order to identify the main categories they use to determine these three concepts. The results show that these are multi-dimensional concepts and similar indicators are used indistinctly to measure happiness, well-being and quality of life.

Keywords: Grounded theory, happiness, happiness index, quality of life, scoping review, well-being.

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Authors: Budiyanto, Hening Widi Oetomo

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Magetan area is going to be the object of this research which is located in East Java, Indonesia. The data were obtained from 270 civil servants working at the Magetan District government. The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Square program. The research showed the following findings: (1) job motivation variable has a positive and significant effect on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); (2) work environment has positive and significant effect on OCB; (3) leadership variable has positive and significant effect on OCB; (4) job motivation variable has no significant effect on job satisfaction; (5) work environment variable has no significant effect on job satisfaction; (6) leadership variable has no significant effect on job satisfaction; (7) OCB is positively and significantly associated with job satisfaction; (8) job satisfaction variable is positively and significantly correlated with quality of public service at the Magetan District government.

Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Leadership, OrganizationalCitizenship Behavior (OCB), Quality of Public Service

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Authors: Fong-Woon Lai

Abstract:

The risk sphere in business is fast changing and expanding. Almost anything has become a risk factor that will have potent, direct, and far reaching impacts on business. This paper examines the intensity of enterprise risk management (ERM) practices among the Malaysian public listed companies. The paper espouses a ERM framework comprising fourteen important implementation elements and processes. Results of the analysis indicate that the intensity of ERM implementation among the respondents is in the ‘good’ category of the semantic scale, which is deemed encouraging vis-à-vis the country’s regulatory regime.

Keywords: Enterprise risk management, implementation framework, ERM practices.

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Authors: S. Arrizabalaga, A. Salterain, M. Domínguez, I. Alvaro

Abstract:

Traditionally, Internet has provided best-effort service to every user regardless of its requirements. However, as Internet becomes universally available, users demand more bandwidth and applications require more and more resources, and interest has developed in having the Internet provide some degree of Quality of Service. Although QoS is an important issue, the question of how it will be brought into the Internet has not been solved yet. Researches, due to the rapid advances in technology are proposing new and more desirable capabilities for the next generation of IP infrastructures. But neither all applications demand the same amount of resources, nor all users are service providers. In this way, this paper is the first of a series of papers that presents an architecture as a first step to the optimization of QoS in the Internet environment as a solution to a SMSE's problem whose objective is to provide public service to internet with certain Quality of Service expectations. The service provides new business opportunities, but also presents new challenges. We have designed and implemented a scalable service framework that supports adaptive bandwidth based on user demands, and the billing based on usage and on QoS. The developed application has been evaluated and the results show that traffic limiting works at optimum and so it does exceeding bandwidth distribution. However, some considerations are done and currently research is under way in two basic areas: (i) development and testing new transfer protocols, and (ii) developing new strategies for traffic improvements based on service differentiation.

Keywords: Differentiated Services, Linux, Quality of Service, queueing disciplines, web application.

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Authors: James Moir

Abstract:

Citizens are increasingly are provided with choice and customization in public services and this has now also become a key feature of higher education in terms of policy roll-outs on personal development planning (PDP) and more generally as part of the employability agenda. The goal here is to transform people, in this case graduates, into active, responsible citizen-workers. A key part of this rhetoric and logic is the inculcation of graduate attributes within students. However, there has also been a concern with the issue of student lack of engagement and perseverance with their studies. This paper sets out to explore some of these conceptions that link graduate attributes with citizenship as well as the notion of how identity is forged through the higher education process. Examples are drawn from a quality enhancement project that is being operated within the context of the Scottish higher education system. This is further framed within the wider context of competing and conflicting demands on higher education, exacerbated by the current worldwide economic climate. There are now pressures on students to develop their employability skills as well as their capacity to engage with global issues such as behavioural change in the light of environmental concerns. It is argued that these pressures, in effect, lead to a form of personalization that is concerned with how graduates develop their sense of identity as something that is engineered and re-engineered to meet these demands.

Keywords: students, higher education, employability, knowledge, personal development

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