Search results for: quality determinants

Authors: Ming-Wen Hsu, Yaw-Kuang Chen, Che-Ming Chiang, Shin-Ku Lee

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This research explores visitor-s expectations of service quality in intelligent living space showroom – Living 3.0 in Taiwan. Based on the five dimensions of PZB service quality, a specialist questionnaire is utilized to establish a complete service quality evaluation framework for Living 3.0. In this research, analysis hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to find the relative weights among the criteria. Finally, the service quality evaluation framework and evaluation results can be used as a guide for Living 3.0 proprietors to review, improve, and enhance service planning and service qualities in the future.

Keywords: Analysis Hierarchy Process (AHP), Service quality, Intelligent living space.

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Authors: Rania Rushdy Moussa

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Public parks are placed high on the research agenda, with many studies addressing their social, economic and environment influences in different countries around the world. They have been recognized as contributors to the physical quality of urban environments. Recently, a broader view of public parks has emerged. This view goes well beyond the traditional value of parks as places for more recreation and visual delight, to depict them as valuable contributors to broader strategic objectives, such as property values, place attractiveness, job opportunities, social belonging, public health, tourist development, and improving the overall quality of life. This research examines the role of public parks in enhancing the quality of human life in Egyptian environment. It measures 'quality of life' in terms of 'human needs' and 'well-being'. This should open ways for policymakers, practitioners, researchers and the public to realize the potentials of public parks towards improving the quality of life.

Keywords: Elements of Parks, Human Needs, Quality of Life (QOL), Subjective Well-Being.

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Authors: Suppara Charoenpoom

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The objectives of this research was to design and develop a quality management of the school buildings and environment. A quantitative and qualitative mixed research methodology was used. The population sample included 14 directors of primary schools. Two research tools were used. The first research tool included an in-depth interview and questionnaire. The second research tool included the Quality Business Process and Quality Work Procedure, and a Key Performance Indicator of each activity. The statistics included mean and standard deviation. The findings for the development of a quality management process of buildings and environment administration of the basic schools consisted of one quality business process (QBP) and seven quality work processes (QWP). The result from the experts’ evaluation revealed that the process and implementation of quality management of the school buildings and environment has passed the inspection process with consensus. This implies that the process of quality management of the school buildings and environment is suitable for implementation. Moreover, the level of agreement in the feasibility of the implementation of this plan had the mean in the range of 0.64-1.00 which suggests the design of the new plan is acceptable.

Keywords: Process, Building, Environment.

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Authors: R. Karami, A. Gharaei

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This study was undertaken at four different sites (north polluted, south polluted, south healthy and north healthy) in Tehran, in order to examine whether there was a relationship between publicly available air quality data and the public’s perception of air quality and to suggest some guidelines for reducing air pollution. A total of 200 people were accidentally filled out the research questionnaires at mentioned sites and air quality data were obtained simultaneously from the Air Quality Control Department. Data was analyzed in Excel and SPSS software’s. Clean air and job security were of great importance to people comparing to other pleasant aspect of life. Also air pollution and serious diseases were the most important of people concerns. Street monitors and news paper services on air quality were little used by the public as a means of obtaining information on air pollution. Using public transportation and avoiding inevitable journeys are the most important ways for reducing air pollution. The results reveal that the public’s perception of air quality is not a reliable indicator of the actual levels of air pollution.

Keywords: Air pollution, Quality of life, Opinion poll, Public participation.

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Authors: Karolína Vozková, Matěj Kuc

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Net fee and commission income is one of the key elements of a bank’s core income. In the current low-interest rate environment, this type of income is gaining importance relative to net interest income. This paper analyses the effects of bank and country specific determinants of net fee and commission income on a set of cooperative banks from European countries in the 2007-2014 period. In order to do that, dynamic panel data methods (system Generalized Methods of Moments) were employed. Subsequently, alternative panel data methods were run as robustness checks of the analysis. Strong positive impact of bank concentration on the share of net fee and commission income was found, which proves that cooperative banks tend to display a higher share of fee income in less competitive markets. This is probably connected with the fact that they stick with their traditional deposit-taking and loan-providing model and fees on these services are driven down by the competitors. Moreover, compared to commercial banks, cooperatives do not expand heavily into non-traditional fee bearing services under competition and their overall fee income share is therefore decreasing with the increased competitiveness of the sector.

Keywords: Cooperative banking, dynamic panel data models, net fee, commission income, system GMM.

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Authors: Chien-Hua Wang, Meng-Ying Chou, Chin-Tzong Pang

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This paper applies fuzzy AHP to evaluate the service quality of online auction. Service quality is a composition of various criteria. Among them many intangible attributes are difficult to measure. This characteristic introduces the obstacles for respondents on reply in the survey. So as to overcome this problem, we invite fuzzy set theory into the measurement of performance and use AHP in obtaining criteria. We found the most concerned dimension of service quality is Transaction Safety Mechanism and the least is Charge Item. Other criteria such as information security, accuracy and information are too vital.

Keywords: Fuzzy set theory, AHP, Online auction, Service quality

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Authors: Sivapan Choo-In, Chaisri Tharasawatpipat, Srisuwan Kaseamsawat, Tatsanawalai Utarasakul

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The research aims to study the quality of surface water for consumer in Samut Songkram province. Water sample were collected from 217 sampling sites conclude 72 sampling sites in Amphawa, 67 sampling sites in Bangkhonthee and 65 sampling sites in Muang. Water sample were collected in December 2011 for winter, March 2012 for summer and August 2012 for rainy season. From the investigation of surface water quality in Mae Klong River, main and tributaries canals in Samut Songkram province, we found that water quality meet the type III of surface water quality standard issued by the National Environmental Quality Act B.E. 1992. Seasonal variations of pH, Temperature, nitrate, lead and cadmium have statistical differences between 3 seasons.

Keywords: Samut Songkram Province, Surface water quality.

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Authors: P. Guayjarernpanishkand, T. Mayureesawan

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This paper presents a comparison of average outgoing quality limit of the MCSP-2-C plan with MCSP-C when MCSP-2-C has been developed from MCSP-C. The parameters used in MCSP-2- C are: i (the clearance number), c (the acceptance number), m (the number of conforming units to be found before allowing c nonconforming units in the sampling inspection), f1 and f2 (the sampling frequency at level 1 and 2, respectively). The average outgoing quality limit (AOQL) values from two plans were compared and we found that for all sets of i, r, and c values, MCSP-2-C gives higher values than MCSP-C. For all sets of i, r, and c values, the average outgoing quality values of MCSP-C and MCSP-2-C are similar when p is low or high but is difference when p is moderate.

Keywords: average outgoing quality, average outgoing quality limit, continuous sampling plan.

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Authors: Cesar Eduardo Hernández Curiel, Victor Hugo Benítez Baltazar, Jesús Horacio Pacheco Ramírez

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This paper is devoted to present the advances in the design of a prototype that is able to supervise the complex behavior of water quality parameters such as pH and temperature, via a real-time monitoring system. The current water quality tests that are performed in government water quality institutions in Mexico are carried out in problematic locations and they require taking manual samples. The water samples are then taken to the institution laboratory for examination. In order to automate this process, a water quality monitoring system based on wireless sensor networks is proposed. The system consists of a sensor node which contains one pH sensor, one temperature sensor, a microcontroller, and a ZigBee radio, and a base station composed by a ZigBee radio and a PC. The progress in this investigation shows the development of a water quality monitoring system. Due to recent events that affected water quality in Mexico, the main motivation of this study is to address water quality monitoring systems, so in the near future, a more robust, affordable, and reliable system can be deployed.

Keywords: pH measurement, water quality monitoring, wireless sensor networks, ZigBee.

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Authors: Gurmeet Kaur, Jyoti Pruthi

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Agile Software development approaches and techniques are being considered as efficient, effective, and popular methods to the development of software. Agile software developments are useful for developing high-quality software that completes client requirements with zero defects, and in short delivery period. In agile software development methodology, quality is related to coding, which means quality, is managed through the use of approaches like refactoring, pair programming, test-driven development, behavior-driven development, acceptance test-driven development, and demand-driven development. The quality of software is measured using metrics like the number of defects during the development and improvement of the software. Usage of the above-mentioned methods or approaches reduces the possibilities of defects in developed software, and hence improves quality. This paper focuses on the study of agile-based quality methods or approaches for software development that ensures improved quality of software as well as reduced cost, and customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Agile software development, ASD, Acceptance test-driven development, ATDD, Behavior-driven development, BDD, Demand-driven development. DDD, Test-driven development, TDD.

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Authors: D. Mojo, Y. Todo, P. Matous

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In this paper, perceptions of actors on changes in crop productivity, quantity and quality of water, and determinants of their perception are analyzed using descriptive statistics and ordered logit model. Data collected from 297 Ethiopian farmers and 103 agricultural professionals from December 2009 to January 2010 are employed. Results show that the majority of the farmers and professionals recognized decline in water resources, reasoning climate changes and soil erosion as some of the causes. However, there is a variation in views on changes in productivity. The household asset, education level, age and geographical positions are found to affect farmers- perception on changes in crop productivity. But, the study underlines that there is no evidence that farmers- economic status, age, or education level affects recognition of degradation of water resources. Thus, more focus shall be given on providing them different coping mechanisms and alternative resource conserving technologies than educating about the problems.

Keywords: Agricultural Sustainability, Ethiopia, Perception, Productivity, Water Resources

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Authors: Chiung-Ju Huang

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This study utilizes the quantile regression analysis to examine the impact of governance (including democratic quality and technical quality) on happiness in 101 countries worldwide, classified as “developed countries” and “developing countries”. The empirical results show that the impact of democratic quality and technical quality on happiness is significantly positive for “developed countries”, while is insignificant for “developing countries”. The results suggest that the authorities in developed countries can enhance the level of individual happiness by means of improving the democracy quality and technical quality. However, for developing countries, promoting the quality of governance in order to enhance the level of happiness may not be effective. Policy makers in developed countries may pay more attention on increasing real GDP per capita instead of promoting the quality of governance to enhance individual happiness.

Keywords: Governance, happiness, multiple regression, quantile regression.

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Authors: Sherif G. Aly

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In this article, we introduce a mechanism by which the same concept of differentiated services used in network transmission can be applied to provide quality of service levels to pervasive systems applications. The classical DiffServ model, including marking and classification, assured forwarding, and expedited forwarding, are all utilized to create quality of service guarantees for various pervasive applications requiring different levels of quality of service. Through a collection of various sensors, personal devices, and data sources, the transmission of contextsensitive data can automatically occur within a pervasive system with a given quality of service level. Triggers, initiators, sources, and receivers are four entities labeled in our mechanism. An explanation of the role of each is provided, and how quality of service is guaranteed.

Keywords: Pervasive systems, quality of service, differentiated services, mobile devices.

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Authors: Sunday E. Ogundipe, Rafiu O. Salawu, Lawrencia O. Ogundipe

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The study examines the determinants of corporate cash holding of non-financial quoted firms in Nigeria using a sample of fifty four non-financial quoted firms listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange for the period 1995-2009. Data were sourced from the Annual reports of the sampled firms and analyzed using Generalized Method of Moments(GMM). The study finds evidence supportive of a target adjustment model and that firms can not instantaneously adjust towards the target cash level owing to the fact that adjustment cost being costly,. Also, the result shows significant negative relationship between cash holdings and firm size, net working capital, return on asset and bank relationship and positive relationship with growth opportunities, leverage, inventories, account receivables and financial distress. Furthermore, there is no significant relationship between cash holdings and cash flow. In Nigerian setting, most of the variables that are relevant for explaining cash holdings in the Developed countries are found by this study to be relevant also in Nigeria.

Keywords: Adjustment Model , Cash holding, Determinant, Generalized Method of Moments(GMM)

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Authors: U. Idachaba, F. Z. Wang, A. Qi, N. Helian

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Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a relatively new swarm intelligence technique for clustering. It produces higher quality clusters compared to other population-based algorithms but with poor energy efficiency, cluster quality consistency and typically slower in convergence speed. Inspired by energy saving foraging behavior of natural honey bees this paper presents a Quality and Quantity Aware Artificial Bee Colony (Q2ABC) algorithm to improve quality of cluster identification, energy efficiency and convergence speed of the original ABC. To evaluate the performance of Q2ABC algorithm, experiments were conducted on a suite of ten benchmark UCI datasets. The results demonstrate Q2ABC outperformed ABC and K-means algorithm in the quality of clusters delivered.

Keywords: Artificial bee colony algorithm, clustering.

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Authors: Ching-hui Lin, Yen-Chieh Wen

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The main purpose of this study is to analyze the feelings of tourists for the service quality of the bikeway. In addition, this study also analyzed the causal relationship between service quality and satisfaction to visitor-s lane loyalty. In this study, the Ya Tam San bikeway visitor-s subjects, using the designated convenience sampling carried out the survey, a total of 651 questionnaires were validly. Valid questionnaires after statistical analysis, the following findings: 1. Visitor-s lane highest quality of service project: the routes through the region weather pleasant. Lane "with health and sports," the highest satisfaction various factors of service quality and satisfaction, loyal between correlations exist. 4. Guided tours of bikeways, the quality of the environment, and modeling imagery can effectively predict visitor satisfaction. 5. Quality of bikeway, public facilities, guided tours, and modeling imagery can effectively predict visitor loyalty. According to the above results, the study not only makes recommendations to the government units and the bicycle industry, also asked the research direction for future researchers.

Keywords: Service quality, satisfaction, loyal, bikeway.

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Authors: K. K. Aggarwal, Yogesh Singh, Arvinder Kaur, Ruchika Malhotra

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Importance of software quality is increasing leading to development of new sophisticated techniques, which can be used in constructing models for predicting quality attributes. One such technique is Artificial Neural Network (ANN). This paper examined the application of ANN for software quality prediction using Object- Oriented (OO) metrics. Quality estimation includes estimating maintainability of software. The dependent variable in our study was maintenance effort. The independent variables were principal components of eight OO metrics. The results showed that the Mean Absolute Relative Error (MARE) was 0.265 of ANN model. Thus we found that ANN method was useful in constructing software quality model.

Keywords: Software quality, Measurement, Metrics, Artificial neural network, Coupling, Cohesion, Inheritance, Principal component analysis.

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Authors: Sudipta Nath, Arindam Dey, Abhijit Chakrabarti

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This paper presents features that characterize power quality disturbances from recorded voltage waveforms using wavelet transform. The discrete wavelet transform has been used to detect and analyze power quality disturbances. The disturbances of interest include sag, swell, outage and transient. A power system network has been simulated by Electromagnetic Transients Program. Voltage waveforms at strategic points have been obtained for analysis, which includes different power quality disturbances. Then wavelet has been chosen to perform feature extraction. The outputs of the feature extraction are the wavelet coefficients representing the power quality disturbance signal. Wavelet coefficients at different levels reveal the time localizing information about the variation of the signal.

Keywords: Power quality, detection of disturbance, wavelet transform, multiresolution signal decomposition.

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Authors: Akhil Kumar Arya, Jagdeep Singh Lather, Lillie Dewan

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In this paper is to evaluate audio and speech quality with the help of Digital Audio Watermarking Technique under the different types of attacks (signal impairments) like Gaussian Noise, Compression Error and Jittering Effect. Further attacks are considered as Hostile Environment. Audio and Speech Quality Evaluation is an important research topic. The traditional way for speech quality evaluation is using subjective tests. They are reliable, but very expensive, time consuming, and cannot be used in certain applications such as online monitoring. Objective models, based on human perception, were developed to predict the results of subjective tests. The existing objective methods require either the original speech or complicated computation model, which makes some applications of quality evaluation impossible.

Keywords: Digital Watermarking, DCT, Speech Quality, Attacks.

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Authors: Alessandro Bevilacqua, Alessandro Gherardi, Filippo Piccinini

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The mosaicing technique has been employed in more and more application fields, from entertainment to scientific ones. In the latter case, often the final evaluation is still left to human beings, that assess visually the quality of the mosaic. Many times, a lack of objective measurements in microscopic mosaicing may prevent the mosaic from being used as a starting image for further analysis. In this work we analyze three different metrics and indexes, in the domain of signal analysis, image analysis and visual quality, to measure the quality of different aspects of the mosaicing procedure, such as registration errors and visual quality. As the case study we consider the mosaicing algorithm we developed. The experiments have been carried out by considering mosaics with very different features: histological samples, that are made of detailed and contrasted images, and live stem cells, that show a very low contrast and low detail levels.

Keywords: Mosaicing, quality assessment, microscopy, stem cells.

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Authors: Kang Chia Yang, Hushairi HJ Zen, Nur Ikhmar@Najemeen Binti Ayob

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Power quality is used to describe the degree of consistency of electrical energy expected from generation source to point of use. The term power quality refers to a wide variety of electromagnetic phenomena that characterize the voltage and current at a given time and at a given location on the power system. Power quality problems can be defined as problem that results in failure of customer equipments, which manifests itself as an economic burden to users, or produces negative impacts on the environment. Voltage stability, power factor, harmonics pollution, reactive power and load unbalance are some of the factors that affect the consistency or the quality level. This research proposal proposes to investigate and analyze the causes and effects of power quality to homes and industries in Sarawak. The increasing application of electronics equipment used in the industries and homes has caused a big impact on the power quality. Many electrical devices are now interconnected to the power network and it can be observed that if the power quality of the network is good, then any loads connected to it will run smoothly and efficiently. On the other hand, if the power quality of the network is bad, then loads connected to it will fail or may cause damage to the equipments and reduced its lifetime. The outcome of this research will enable better and novel solutions of poor power quality to small industries and reduce damage of electrical devices and products in the industries.

Keywords: Power quality, power network, voltage dip.

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Authors: Najib Ahmad Marzuki, Che Su Mustaffa, Johana Johari, Nur Hafizza Rahaman

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects and relationship of stress and social support towards the quality of life among flood victims in Malaysia. A total of 764 respondents took part in the survey via convenience sampling. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale (DASS) was utilized to measure stress while The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support was used to measure social support. To measure quality of life, the combination of WHO Quality of Life – BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) and The Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R) were utilized. The findings of this study indicate that there were significant correlations between variables in the study. The findings showed a significant negative relation between stress and quality of life; and significant positive correlations between support from family as well as support from friends with quality of life. Stress and support from family were found to be significant predictors that influence the quality of life among flood victims.

Keywords: Stress, social support, quality of life, flood victims.

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Authors: N. J. M. Yusof, T. Sabir, J. McLoughlin

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The garment manufacturing industry involves sequential processes that are subjected to uncontrollable variations. The industry depends on the skill of labour in handling the varieties of fabrics and accessories, machines, as well as complicated sewing operation. Due to these reasons, garment manufacturers have created systems to monitor and to control the quality of the products on a regular basis by conducting quality approaches to minimize variation. With that, the aim of this research has been to ascertain the quality approaches deployed by Malaysian garment manufacturers in three key areas - quality systems and tools; quality control and types of inspection; as well as sampling procedures chosen for garment inspection. Besides, the focus of this research was to distinguish the quality approaches adopted by companies that supplied finished garments to both domestic and international markets. Feedback from each company representative has been obtained via online survey, which comprised of five sections and 44 questions on the organizational profile and the quality approaches employed in the garment industry. As a result, the response rate was 31%. The results revealed that almost all companies have established their own mechanism of process control by conducting a series of quality inspections for daily production, either it was formally set up or otherwise. In addition, quality inspection has been the predominant quality control activity in the garment manufacturing, while the level of complexity of these activities was substantially dictated by the customers. Moreover, AQL-based sampling was utilized by companies dealing with exports, whilst almost all the companies that only concentrated on the domestic market were comfortable using their own sampling procedures for garment inspection. Hence, this research has provided insights into the implementation of a number of quality approaches that were perceived as important and useful in the garment manufacturing sector, which is truly labour-intensive.

Keywords: Garment manufacturing, quality approaches, quality control, inspection, acceptance quality limit (AQL), and sampling.

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Authors: Eva Nedeliakova, Jaroslav Masek, Juraj Camaj

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This article describes the results of research focused on quality of railway freight transport services. Improvement of these services has a crucial importance in customer considering on the future use of railway transport. Processes filling the customer demands and output quality assessment were defined as a part of the research. In this contribution is introduced the map of quality planning and the algorithm of applied methodology. It characterizes a model which takes into account characters of transportation with linking a perception services quality in ordinary and extraordinary operation. Despite the fact that rail freight transport has its solid position in the transport market, lots of carriers worldwide have been experiencing a stagnation for a couple of years. Therefore, specific results of the research have a significant importance and belong to numerous initiatives aimed to develop and support railway transport not only by creating a single railway area or reducing noise but also by promoting railway services. This contribution is focused also on the application of dynamic quality models which represent an innovative method of evaluation quality services. Through this conception, time factor, expected, and perceived quality in each moment of the transportation process can be taken into account.

Keywords: Quality, railway, transport, service.

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Authors: Mingyu Xie, Mietek Brdys

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The paper develops a Non-Linear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) of water quality in Drinking Water Distribution Systems (DWDS) based on the advanced non-linear quality dynamics model including disinfections by-products (DBPs). A special attention is paid to the analysis of an impact of the flow trajectories prescribed by an upper control level of the recently developed two-time scale architecture of an integrated quality and quantity control in DWDS. The new quality controller is to operate within this architecture in the fast time scale as the lower level quality controller. The controller performance is validated by a comprehensive simulation study based on an example case study DWDS.

Keywords: Model predictive control, hierarchical control structure, genetic algorithm, water quality with DBPs objectives.

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Authors: B. Thanasansomboon, S. Choemprayong, N. Parinyanitikul, U. Tanlamai

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Being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, the patients as well as their caretakers are affected physically and mentally. Although the medical systems in Thailand have been attempting to improve the quality and effectiveness of the treatment of the disease in terms of physical illness, the success of the treatment also depends on the quality of mental health. Metastatic breast cancer patients have found that social support is a key factor that helps them through this difficult time. It is recognized that social support in different dimensions, including emotional support, social network support, informational support, instrumental support and appraisal support, are contributing factors that positively affect the quality of life of patients in general, and it is undeniable that social support in various forms is important in promoting the quality of life of metastatic breast patients. However, previous studies have not been dedicated to investigating their quality of life concerning affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to develop integrated social support through social networks to improve the quality of life of metastatic breast cancer patients in Thailand.

Keywords: Social support, metastatic breast cancer, quality of life, social network.

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Authors: S. Wechmongkhonkon, N.Poomtong, S. Areerachakul

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Water quality is a subject of ongoing concern. Deterioration of water quality has initiated serious management efforts in many countries. This study endeavors to automatically classify water quality. The water quality classes are evaluated using 6 factor indices. These factors are pH value (pH), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Nitrate Nitrogen (NO3N), Ammonia Nitrogen (NH3N) and Total Coliform (TColiform). The methodology involves applying data mining techniques using multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network models. The data consisted of 11 sites of canals in Dusit district in Bangkok, Thailand. The data is obtained from the Department of Drainage and Sewerage Bangkok Metropolitan Administration during 2007-2011. The results of multilayer perceptron neural network exhibit a high accuracy multilayer perception rate at 96.52% in classifying the water quality of Dusit district canal in Bangkok Subsequently, this encouraging result could be applied with plan and management source of water quality.

Keywords: artificial neural network, classification, surface water quality

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Authors: H. Ashrafi, S. Ebrahimi, H. Kamalzadeh

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With the development of business competition, it is important for healthcare providers to improve their service qualities. In order to improve service quality of a clinic, four important dimensions are defined: tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, and reliability. Moreover, there are several service stages in hospitals such as financial screening and examination. One of the most challenging limitations for improving service quality is budget which impressively affects the service quality. In this paper, we present an approach to address budget uncertainty and provide guidelines for service resource allocation. In this paper, a service quality improvement approach is proposed which can be adopted to multistage service processes to improve service quality, while controlling the costs. A multi-objective function based on the importance of each area and dimension is defined to link operational variables to service quality dimensions. The results demonstrate that our approach is not ultra-conservative and it shows the actual condition very well. Moreover, it is shown that different strategies can affect the number of employees in different stages.

Keywords: Service quality assessment, healthcare resource allocation, robust optimization, budget uncertainty.

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Authors: N. Šarlija, S. Pfeifer, M. Jeger, A. Bilandžić

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Enterprise growth is generally considered as a key driver of competitiveness, employment, economic development and social inclusion. As such, it is perceived to be a highly desirable outcome of entrepreneurship for scholars and decision makers. The huge academic debate resulted in the multitude of theoretical frameworks focused on explaining growth stages, determinants and future prospects. It has been widely accepted that enterprise growth is most likely nonlinear, temporal and related to the variety of factors which reflect the individual, firm, organizational, industry or environmental determinants of growth. However, factors that affect growth are not easily captured, instruments to measure those factors are often arbitrary, causality between variables and growth is elusive, indicating that growth is not easily modeled. Furthermore, in line with heterogeneous nature of the growth phenomenon, there is a vast number of measurement constructs assessing growth which are used interchangeably. Differences among various growth measures, at conceptual as well as at operationalization level, can hinder theory development which emphasizes the need for more empirically robust studies. In line with these highlights, the main purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to compare structure and performance of three growth prediction models based on the main growth measures: Revenues, employment and assets growth. Secondly, to explore the prospects of financial indicators, set as exact, visible, standardized and accessible variables, to serve as determinants of enterprise growth. Finally, to contribute to the understanding of the implications on research results and recommendations for growth caused by different growth measures. The models include a range of financial indicators as lag determinants of the enterprises’ performances during the 2008-2013, extracted from the national register of the financial statements of SMEs in Croatia. The design and testing stage of the modeling used the logistic regression procedures. Findings confirm that growth prediction models based on different measures of growth have different set of predictors. Moreover, the relationship between particular predictors and growth measure is inconsistent, namely the same predictor positively related to one growth measure may exert negative effect on a different growth measure. Overall, financial indicators alone can serve as good proxy of growth and yield adequate predictive power of the models. The paper sheds light on both methodology and conceptual framework of enterprise growth by using a range of variables which serve as a proxy for the multitude of internal and external determinants, but are unlike them, accessible, available, exact and free of perceptual nuances in building up the model. Selection of the growth measure seems to have significant impact on the implications and recommendations related to growth. Furthermore, the paper points out to potential pitfalls of measuring and predicting growth. Overall, the results and the implications of the study are relevant for advancing academic debates on growth-related methodology, and can contribute to evidence-based decisions of policy makers.

Keywords: Growth measurement constructs, logistic regression, prediction of growth potential, small and medium-sized enterprises.

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Authors: Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino, Veruska C. Dutra, Carlos H. C. Tolentino

Abstract:

The quality of life index, despite elucidating many discussions, the conceptual subjectivity of the term does not show precision, and consequently, many researchers seek to develop methods aiming to measure this concept, bringing it to a more concrete approach. In this study, the quality of life index method was used to analyze the population of Mateiros, Tocantins, Brazil for quality of life. After data collection, it was compared the quality of life index between the population and the group of beneficiaries of the Brazilian government assistance program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Some of the people interviewed receive financial aid from the federal government program Bolsa Família (22%). Comparisons were made among the final score of the quality of life index of the Mateiros population and the following factors: Gender, age, education, those working or not with tourism and those who receive or do not receive the Bolsa Família. It was observed that only the factor, Bolsa Família (p-score 0.0138), shows an association with quality of life improvement, noticing that those who have financial aid had a higher quality of life improvement than the rest of the population. It was concluded that, government assistance has shown a decisive element on the enhancement of Mateiros population quality of life, indicating that similar actions should be maintained.

Keywords: Quality of life index, government aid to families, sustainable tourism, Bolsa Familia.

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