Search results for: life satisfaction
1765 Investigating the Road Maintenance Performance in Developing Countries
Authors: Jamaa Salih, Francis Edum-Fotwe, Andrew Price
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One of the most critical aspects of the management of road infrastructure is the type and scale of maintenance systems adopted and the consequences of their inadequacy. The performance of road maintenance systems can be assessed by a number of important indicators such as: cost, safety, environmental impact, and level of complaints by users. A review of practice reveals that insufficient level of expenditure or poor management of the road network often has serious consequences for the economic and social life of a country in terms of vehicle operating costs (VOC), travel time costs, accident costs and environmental impact. Despite an increase in the attention paid by global road agencies to the environmental and the road users’ satisfaction, the overwhelming evidence from the available literature agree on the lack of similar levels of attention for the two factors in many developing countries. While many sources agree that the road maintenance backlog is caused by either the shortage of expenditures or lack of proper management or both, it appears that managing the available assets particularly in the developing countries is the main issue. To address this subject, this paper will concentrate on exposing the various issues related to this field.
Keywords: Environmental impact, performance indicators, road maintenance, users’ satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 33911764 Teachers’ Perceptions of the Negative Impact of Tobephobia on Their Emotions and Job Satisfaction
Authors: Prakash Singh
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The aim of this study was to investigate the extent of teachers’ experiences of tobephobia (TBP) in their heterogeneous classrooms and what impact this had on their emotions and job satisfaction. The expansive and continuously changing demands for quality and equal education for all students in educational organisations that have limited resources connotes that the negative effects of TBP cannot be simply ignored as being non-existent in the educational environment. As this quantitative study reveals, teachers disliking their job with low expectations, lack of motivation in their workplace and pessimism, result in their low self-esteem. When there is pessimism in the workplace, then the employees’ self-esteem will inevitably be low, as pointed out by 97.1% of the respondents in this study. Self-esteem is a reliable indicator of whether employees are happy or not in their jobs and the majority of the respondents in this study agreed that their experiences of TBP negatively impacted on their self-esteem. Hence, this exploratory study strongly indicates that productivity in the workplace is directly linked to the employees’ expectations, self-confidence and their self-esteem. It is therefore inconceivable for teachers to be productive in their regular classrooms if their genuine professional concerns, anxieties, and curriculum challenges are not adequately addressed. This empirical study contributes to our knowledge on TBP because it clearly outlines some of the teaching problems that we are grappling with and constantly experience in our schools in this century. Therefore, it is imperative that the tobephobic experiences of teachers are not merely documented, but appropriately addressed with relevant action by every stakeholder associated with education so that our teachers’ emotions and job satisfaction needs are fully taken care of.
Keywords: Demotivated teachers’ pessimism, low expectations of teachers’ job satisfaction, Self-esteem, Tobephobia.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9001763 Development of Organizational Justice in Incentive Allocation of the Thai Public Sector
Authors: Kalayanee Koonmee
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An incentive for performance, as one subsystem of a new performance management system, has been implemented in the Thai public sector since 2004. This research investigates the development of organizational justice in the incentive allocation by comparing the roles of distributive and procedural justice on national personnel-s attitudinal outcomes (incentive satisfaction and job performance) between 2 periods, i.e. 2006 and 2008. The data were collected via self-administered questionnaires completed by national government officers and employees. They were stratified using multistage sampling with 2,600 usable samples or 72.0% response rate in 2006, and 1,969 usable samples or 59.3% in 2008. The findings are: (1) There is no difference in means between the two periods relating to distributive justice, procedural justice, incentive satisfaction and job performance. (2) Distributive justice and procedural justice played more important roles in predicting incentive satisfaction and job performance in 2008 than in 2006.Keywords: Distributive justice, incentive allocation, proceduraljustice, Thai public sector.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15221762 Indonesian Store Loyalty Factors for Modern Retailing Market
Authors: Lina Salim
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Modern retailers such as hypermarket/supermarket need to be more customer-oriented in order to survive in today-s competitive business world. As a result, the investigation of determinant factors of store loyalty becomes important issue for modern retailing players. This study suggests that consumers- store loyalty in the modern retailing market (hypermarkets and supermarkets) is influenced by environmental factors (such as store image, store personnel). Using a model of stimulus-organismresponse (S-O-R), this research examines S-R relationship of store loyalty. S-O-R framework is derived from the existence literature and tested empirically based on Indonesian consumers- experience. The stimuli for this study are store image, store personnel, satisfaction and culture factors. Affect, or the consumers- liking to modern retailing stores, mediates the chosen environmental factors on consumer-s store loyalty. The findings showed that store image, store satisfaction and culture have significant positive relationship to store loyalty via affect.Keywords: Affect, Culture, Store Image, Store Loyalty, StorePersonnel, Store Satisfaction
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25031761 Investigating Determinants of Medical User Expectations from Hospital Information System
Authors: G. Gürsel, K. H. Gülkesen, N. Zayim, A. Arifoğlu, O. Saka
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User satisfaction is one of the most used success indicators in the research of information system (IS). Literature shows user expectations have great influence on user satisfaction. Both expectation and satisfaction of users are important for Hospital Information Systems (HIS). Education, IS experience, age, attitude towards change, business title, sex and working unit of the hospital, are examined as the potential determinant of the medical users’ expectations. Data about medical user expectations are collected by the “Expectation Questionnaire” developed for this study. Expectation data are used for calculating the Expectation Meeting Ratio (EMR) with the evaluation framework also developed for this study. The internal consistencies of the answers to the questionnaire are measured by Cronbach´s Alpha coefficient. The multivariate analysis of medical user’s EMRs of HIS is performed by forward stepwise binary logistic regression analysis. Education and business title is appeared to be the determinants of expectations from HIS.Keywords: Evaluation, Fuzzy Logic, Hospital Information System, User Expectation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19451760 Theoretical Appraisal of Satisfactory Decisions: Uncertainty, Evolutionary Ideas and Beliefs, and Satisfactory Time Use
Authors: Okay Gunes
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Unsatisfactory experiences due to an information shortage regarding the future pay-offs of actual choices, yield satisficing decision-making. This research will examine, for the first time in the literature, the motivation behind suboptimal decisions due to uncertainty by subjecting Adam Smith’s and Jeremy Bentham’s assumptions about the nature of the actions that lead to satisficing behavior, in order to clarify the theoretical background of a “consumption-based satisfactory time” concept. The contribution of this paper with respect to the existing literature is threefold: firstly, it is showed in this paper that Adam Smith’s uncertainty is related to the problem of the constancy of ideas and not related directly to beliefs. Secondly, possessions, as in Jeremy Bentham’s oeuvre, are assumed to be just as pleasing, as protecting and improving the actual or expected quality of life, so long as they reduce any displeasure due to the undesired outcomes of uncertainty. Finally, each consumption decision incurs its own satisfactory time period, owed to not feeling hungry, being healthy, not having transportation…etc. This reveals that the level of satisfaction is indeed a behavioral phenomenon where its value would depend on the simultaneous satisfaction derived from all activities.
Keywords: Decision-making, idea and belief, satisficing, uncertainty.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19291759 Development of Performance Measures for the Implementation of Total Quality Management in Indian Industry
Authors: Perminderjit Singh, Sukhvir Singh
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Total Quality Management (TQM) refers to management methods used to enhance quality and productivity in business organizations. Total Quality Management (TQM) has become a frequently used term in discussions concerning quality. Total Quality management has brought rise in demands on the organizations policy and the customers have gained more importance in the organizations focus. TQM is considered as an important management tool, which helps the organizations to satisfy their customers. In present research critical success factors includes management commitment, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, work culture and environment, supplier quality management, training and development, employee satisfaction and product/process design are studied. A questionnaire is developed to implement these critical success factors in implementation of total quality management in Indian industry. Questionnaires filled by consulting different industrial organizations. Data collected from questionnaires is analyzed by descriptive and importance indexes.
Keywords: Total quality management, critical success factor, employee satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19761758 A Framework for Enhancing Mobile Development Software for Rangsit University, Thailand
Authors: Thossaporn Thossansin
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This paper presents the development of a mobile application for students at the Faculty of Information Technology, Rangsit University (RSU), Thailand. RSU upgrades an enrollment process by improving its information systems. Students can download the RSU APP easily in order to access the RSU substantial information. The reason of having a mobile application is to help students to access the system regardless of time and place. The objectives of this paper include: 1. To develop an application on iOS platform for those students at the Faculty of Information Technology, Rangsit University, Thailand. 2. To obtain the students’ perception towards the new mobile app. The target group is those from the freshman year till the senior year of the faculty of Information Technology, Rangsit University. The new mobile application, called as RSU APP, is developed by the department of Information Technology, Rangsit University. It contains useful features and various functionalities particularly on those that can give support to students. The core contents of the app consist of RSU’s announcement, calendar, events, activities, and ebook. The mobile app is developed on the iOS platform. The user satisfaction is analyzed from the interview data from 81 interviewees as well as a Google application like a Google form which 122 interviewees are involved. The result shows that users are satisfied with the application as they score it the most satisfaction level at 4.67 SD 0.52. The score for the question if users can learn and use the application quickly is high which is 4.82 SD 0.71. On the other hand, the lowest satisfaction rating is in the app’s form, apps lists, with the satisfaction level as 4.01 SD 0.45.Keywords: Mobile application, development of mobile application, framework of mobile development, software development for mobile devices.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16931757 Effect of Pre-Construction on Construction Schedule and Client Loyalty
Authors: Jong Hoon Kim, Hyun-Soo Lee, Moonseo Park, Min Jeong, Inbeom Lee
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Pre-construction is essential in achieving the success of a construction project. Due to the early involvement of project participants in the construction phase, project managers are able to plan ahead and solve issues well in advance leading to the success of the project and the satisfaction of the client. This research utilizes quantitative data derived from construction management projects in order to identify the relationship between pre-construction, construction schedule, and client satisfaction. A total of 65 construction projects and 93 clients were investigated for this research in an attempt to identify (a) the relationship between pre-construction and schedule reduction, and (b) pre-construction and client loyalty. Based on the quantitative analysis, this research was able to establish a negative correlation based on 65 construction projects between pre-construction and project schedule existed. This finding represents that the more pre-construction is performed for a certain project, the overall construction schedule decreased. Then, to determine the relationship between pre-construction and client satisfaction, Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 93 clients from the 65 projects was utilized. Pre-construction and NPS was further analyzed and a positive correlation was found between the two. This infers that clients tend to be more satisfied with projects with higher ratio of pre-construction than those projects with less pre-construction.
Keywords: Client loyalty, NPS, pre-construction, schedule reduction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32631756 Analysis of the Result for the Accelerated Life Cycle Test of the Motor for Washing Machine by Using Acceleration Factor
Authors: Youn-Sung Kim, Jin-Ho Jo, Mi-Sung Kim, Jae-Kun Lee
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Accelerated life cycle test is applied to various products or components in order to reduce the time of life cycle test in industry. It must be considered for many test conditions according to the product characteristics for the test and the selection of acceleration parameter is especially very important. We have carried out the general life cycle test and the accelerated life cycle test by applying the acceleration factor (AF) considering the characteristics of brushless DC (BLDC) motor for washing machine. The final purpose of this study is to verify the validity by analyzing the results of the general life cycle test and the accelerated life cycle test. It will make it possible to reduce the life test time through the reasonable accelerated life cycle test.Keywords: Accelerated life cycle test, reliability test, motor for washing machine, brushless dc motor test.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18801755 Senior Citizens- Satisfaction on Continuing Education
Authors: Cheng Fang Hsu, Shinn-Jong Lin
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This research is to explore the satisfaction for senior citizens on continuing education in Taiwan. The purpose of this research aims at the difference on teacher-s teaching, personal relationship, learning result, materials and environment. Through different sexual and living area as the background variables, a questionnaire is adopted as the methodology in this research. Three results are found in this research. In overall, senior citizens taking continuing education put the most important attention on personal relationship but materials and leaning environment put the least. There is a significant difference on personal relationship, teacher-s teaching and research result between different sexes. Female senior citizens attach more importance to teacher-s teaching and learning results but male senior citizens value on personal relationship. Another significant difference is shown on teacher-s teaching and personal relationship because of senior citizens living area. Urban senior citizens put importance on personal relationship and rural senior citizens respect teacher-s teaching more.Keywords: Learning satisfaction, continuing education, seniorcitizens.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14111754 A Subjective Scheduler Based on Backpropagation Neural Network for Formulating a Real-life Scheduling Situation
Authors: K. G. Anilkumar, T. Tanprasert
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This paper presents a subjective job scheduler based on a 3-layer Backpropagation Neural Network (BPNN) and a greedy alignment procedure in order formulates a real-life situation. The BPNN estimates critical values of jobs based on the given subjective criteria. The scheduler is formulated in such a way that, at each time period, the most critical job is selected from the job queue and is transferred into a single machine before the next periodic job arrives. If the selected job is one of the oldest jobs in the queue and its deadline is less than that of the arrival time of the current job, then there is an update of the deadline of the job is assigned in order to prevent the critical job from its elimination. The proposed satisfiability criteria indicates that the satisfaction of the scheduler with respect to performance of the BPNN, validity of the jobs and the feasibility of the scheduler.Keywords: Backpropagation algorithm, Critical value, Greedy alignment procedure, Neural network, Subjective criteria, Satisfiability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14851753 Optimal Solution of Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Authors: Jeffrey L. Duffany
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An optimal solution for a large number of constraint satisfaction problems can be found using the technique of substitution and elimination of variables analogous to the technique that is used to solve systems of equations. A decision function f(A)=max(A2) is used to determine which variables to eliminate. The algorithm can be expressed in six lines and is remarkable in both its simplicity and its ability to find an optimal solution. However it is inefficient in that it needs to square the updated A matrix after each variable elimination. To overcome this inefficiency the algorithm is analyzed and it is shown that the A matrix only needs to be squared once at the first step of the algorithm and then incrementally updated for subsequent steps, resulting in significant improvement and an algorithm complexity of O(n3).Keywords: Algorithm, complexity, constraint, np-complete.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14211752 Market Segmentation and Conjoint Analysis for Apple Family Design
Authors: Abbas Al-Refaie, Nour Bata
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A distributor of Apple products' experiences numerous difficulties in developing marketing strategies for new and existing mobile product entries that maximize customer satisfaction and the firm's profitability. This research, therefore, integrates market segmentation in platform-based product family design and conjoint analysis to identify iSystem combinations that increase customer satisfaction and business profits. First, the enhanced market segmentation grid is created. Then, the estimated demand model is formulated. Finally, the profit models are constructed then used to determine the ideal product family design that maximizes profit. Conjoint analysis is used to explore customer preferences with their satisfaction levels. A total of 200 surveys are collected about customer preferences. Then, simulation is used to determine the importance values for each attribute. Finally, sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the product family design that maximizes both objectives. In conclusion, the results of this research shall provide great support to Apple distributors in determining the best marketing strategies that enhance their market share.
Keywords: Market segmentation, conjoint analysis, market strategies, optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 25161751 Rating and Generating Sudoku Puzzles Based On Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Authors: Bahare Fatemi, Seyed Mehran Kazemi, Nazanin Mehrasa
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Sudoku is a logic-based combinatorial puzzle game which people in different ages enjoy playing it. The challenging and addictive nature of this game has made it a ubiquitous game. Most magazines, newspapers, puzzle books, etc. publish lots of Sudoku puzzles every day. These puzzles often come in different levels of difficulty so that all people, from beginner to expert, can play the game and enjoy it. Generating puzzles with different levels of difficulty is a major concern of Sudoku designers. There are several works in the literature which propose ways of generating puzzles having a desirable level of difficulty. In this paper, we propose a method based on constraint satisfaction problems to evaluate the difficulty of the Sudoku puzzles. Then we propose a hill climbing method to generate puzzles with different levels of difficulty. Whereas other methods are usually capable of generating puzzles with only few number of difficulty levels, our method can be used to generate puzzles with arbitrary number of different difficulty levels. We test our method by generating puzzles with different levels of difficulty and having a group of 15 people solve all the puzzles and recording the time they spend for each puzzle.
Keywords: Constraint satisfaction problem, generating Sudoku puzzles, hill climbing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32011750 Impact of Management and Development of Destination Attributes on Coastal Tourists' Visitor Experience, Negombo, Sri Lanka
Authors: M. S. R. Waas, S. G. U. S. Chandrarathne, U. A. Kumara
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The purpose of this quantitative study is to identify the impact of the destination attributes of Negombo on the coastal tourists’ visitor experience. As an island nation, Sri Lanka is identified and well renowned for its gold sandy beaches and natural scenic beauty. Among many tourist attractions, Negombo is identified as a developed beach centric tourist destination in the country. Yet, it is identified that there are low positive reviews on the internet for Negombo compared to other beach centric tourist attractions in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study would help the policymakers and tourism service providers to identify the impact of destination attributes on international visitor satisfaction and to understand the visitors comprehensively so as to develop Negombo as a stable tourist destination while offering a memorable and satisfying experience for its visitors. In support, a self-administered questionnaire survey study was performed with 150 respondents (international tourists) in Negombo. The questions were designed based on the selected dimensions of destination attributes such as tourism service quality, infrastructure and superstructure developments, tourist information facilities and destination aesthetics and developments. The results showed that the overall satisfaction level of the international tourists who visit Sri Lanka is significantly affected by the destination attributes of Negombo. Yet, the dimensions of destination aesthetics and developments and tourist information facilities indicated a low level of mean satisfaction, paving the critique that Negombo as a beach centric tourist attraction is not serving well with its natural beauty and its destination management. Further, it is advocated that the policymakers and tourism service providers have a significant role in leading the way to attract more potential visitors to enhance their destination satisfaction and to encourage them to revisit Sri Lanka while recommending it to others. The survey was done during the off-peak season of the industry and it is suggested that the survey would have been conducted throughout a complete year.
Keywords: Destination attributes, coastal tourism, tourism development, tourist satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9751749 Reliability-Based Life-Cycle Cost Model for Engineering Systems
Authors: Reza Lotfalian, Sudarshan Martins, Peter Radziszewski
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The effect of reliability on life-cycle cost, including initial and maintenance cost of a system is studied. The failure probability of a component is used to calculate the average maintenance cost during the operation cycle of the component. The standard deviation of the life-cycle cost is also calculated as an error measure for the average life-cycle cost. As a numerical example, the model is used to study the average life-cycle cost of an electric motor.
Keywords: Initial Cost, Life-cycle cost, Maintenance Cost, Reliability.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22151748 User Satisfaction and Acceptability of Dialogue Systems for Detecting Counterfeit Drugs
Authors: Oyelami M. Olufemi
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The menace of counterfeiting pharmaceuticals/drugs has become a major threat to consumers, healthcare providers, drug manufacturers and governments. It is a source of public health concern both in the developed and developing nations. Several solutions for detecting and authenticating counterfeit drugs have been adopted by different nations of the world. In this article, a dialogue system-based drug counterfeiting detection system was developed and the results of the user satisfaction and acceptability of the system are presented. The results show that the users were satisfied with the system and the system was widely accepted as a means of fighting counterfeited drugs.
Keywords: Counterfeiting, dialogue system, drugs, voice application.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20671747 Correlation between Meaning in Life and Academic Performance in Japanese College Students
Authors: Jihyun Park
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This research suggests that meaning in life or Ikigai can be associated with better academic performances in Japanese college students. To measure meaning in life in Japanese college students, the Ikigai questionnaire and the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) are both used, and the survey was collected using Microsoft Teams Forms for a total of 80 Japanese college students. The data revealed that students who have a higher than a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) showed the highest score in both the Ikigai and MLQ. The participants with between a 2.0 and a 3.0 GPA reported lower scores in both MLQ and Ikigai than the previous participants. The group of students who have lower than a 2.0 GPA had the lowest scores for MLQ and Ikigai. This result can indicate that implementing meaning in life or Ikigai to early college students can bring about better academic performance, which also can improve students’ college life better as well.
Keywords: College students’ academic performance, Ikigai, meaning in life, purpose of life.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1841746 An Exploratory Approach to Consumer Based Online Authenticity: The Case of Terroir Product of Souss Massa Region, Morocco
Authors: F-E. Ouboutaib, A. Aitheda, S. Mekkaoui
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Marketing research is starting to focus on authenticity to position an offer, especially terroir products. However, with internet its usage remains more problematic. This paper investigates how digitalization impacts the satisfaction of the quest for authenticity. On the theoretical level, it explains authenticity in the online and offline context in the postmodernism era. Then, an exploratory qualitative study tries to understand the contribution of the digitization to the satisfaction of the search of authenticity. Therefore, cooperatives selling terroir product on the internet are advised to keep also direct contact which tends to show traditional manner of production, in order to enhance customers’ perception of terroir product authenticity.
Keywords: Authenticity, online authenticity, postmodernism, terroir products.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5111745 A New Model for e-CRM in e-Commerce using Live-Operator
Authors: Samin Jirehbandei, Alireza Nemaney Pour
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Bythe development of the Internet, e-commerce has got very popular between organizations. E-commerce means buying and selling products and services over the Internet. One of the challenging issues in e-commerce is how to attract the customers and how to satisfy them. Therefore, it is important to keep good relationship with the customers. This paper proposes a new model to increase the customer satisfaction by introducing live-operator. Live-operator is a system which is involved both with the customers and the organization.In this system the customers feelthatthey receive the service directly from the organization. This model decreases the response time and the customer loss. Moreover, it increases customer trust and the ability of organizations.Keywords: Customer, Customer Satisfaction, e-Commerce, e-CRM, Live-Operator, Organization
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23921744 Estimating the Life-Distribution Parameters of Weibull-Life PV Systems Utilizing Non-Parametric Analysis
Authors: Saleem Z. Ramadan
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In this paper, a model is proposed to determine the life distribution parameters of the useful life region for the PV system utilizing a combination of non-parametric and linear regression analysis for the failure data of these systems. Results showed that this method is dependable for analyzing failure time data for such reliable systems when the data is scarce.Keywords: Masking, Bathtub model, reliability, non-parametric analysis, useful life.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18421743 Green Product Design for Mobile Phones
Authors: İlke Bereketli, Müjde Erol Genevois, H. Ziya Ulukan
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Nowadays, manufacturers are facing great challenges with regard to the production of green products due to the emerging issue of hazardous substance management (HSM). In particular, environmental legislation pressures have yielded to increased risk, manufacturing complexity and green components demands. The green principles were expanded to many departments within organization, including supply chain. Green supply chain management (GSCM) was emerging in the last few years. This idea covers every stage in manufacturing from the first to the last stage of life cycle. From product lifecycle concept, the cycle starts at the design of a product. QFD is a customer-driven product development tool, considered as a structured management approach for efficiently translating customer needs into design requirements and parts deployment, as well as manufacturing plans and controls in order to achieve higher customer satisfaction. This paper develops an Eco- QFD to provide a framework for designing Eco-mobile phone by integrating the life cycle analysis LCA into QFD throughout the entire product development process.Keywords: Eco-design, Eco-QFD, EEE, Environmental New Product Development, Mobile Phone.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26341742 The Dilemma of Retention in the Context of Rapidly Growing Economies Based on the Effectiveness of HRM Policies: A Case Study of Qatar
Authors: A. Qayed Al-Emadi, C. Schwabenland, B. Czarnecka
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In 2009, the new HRM policy was implemented in Qatar for public sector organisations. The purpose of this research is to examine how Qatar’s 2009 HRM policy was significant in influencing employee retention in public organisations. The conducted study utilised quantitative methodology to analyse the data on employees’ perceptions of such HRM practices as Performance Management, Rewards and Promotion, Training and Development associated with the HRM policy in public organisations in comparison to semi-private organisations. Employees of seven public and semi-private organisations filled in the questionnaire based on the 5-point Likert scale to present quantitative results. The data was analysed with the correlation and multiple regression statistical analyses. It was found that Performance Management had the relationship with Employee Retention, and Rewards and Promotion influenced Job Satisfaction in public organisations. Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention was also observed. However, no significant differences were observed in the role of HRM practices in public and semi-private organisations.Keywords: Performance management, rewards, promotion, training and development, job satisfaction, employee retention, SHRM, configurationally perspective.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27061741 A Survey on Life Science Database Citation Frequency in Scientific Literatures
Authors: Hendry Muljadi, Jiro Araki, Satoru Miyazaki, Asao Fujiyama
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There are so many databases of various fields of life sciences available online. To find well-used databases, a survey to measure life science database citation frequency in scientific literatures is done. The survey is done by measuring how many scientific literatures which are available on PubMed Central archive cited a specific life science database. This paper presents and discusses the results of the survey.Keywords: Life science, database, metadatabase, PubMedCentral.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14221740 A Development of Online Lessons to Strengthen the Learning Process of Master's Degree Students Majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University
Authors: Chaiwat Waree
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The purposes of the research were to develop online lessons to strengthen the learning process of Master's degree students majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University; to achieve the efficiency criteria of 80/80; and to study the satisfaction of students who use online lessons to strengthen the learning process of Master’s degree students majoring in Curriculum and Instruction at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. The sample consisted of 40 university students studying in semester 1, academic year 2012. The sample was determined by Purposive Sampling. Selected students were from the class which the researcher was the homeroom tutor. The tutor was responsible for the teaching of learning process. Tools used in the study were online lessons, 60-point performance test, and evaluation test of satisfaction of students on online lessons. Data analysis yielded the following results; 83.66/88.29 efficiency of online lessons measured against the criteria; the comparison of performance before and after taking online lessons using t-test yielded 29.67. The statistical significance was at 0.05; the average satisfaction level of forty students on online lessons was 4.46 with standard deviation of 0.68.
Keywords: Online Lessons, Curriculum and Instruction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14331739 Interruption Overload in an Office Environment: Hungarian Survey Focusing on the Factors that Affect Job Satisfaction and Work Efficiency
Authors: Fruzsina Pataki-Bittó, Edit Németh
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On the one hand, new technologies and communication tools improve employee productivity and accelerate information and knowledge transfer, while on the other hand, information overload and continuous interruptions make it even harder to concentrate at work. It is a great challenge for companies to find the right balance, while there is also an ongoing demand to recruit and retain the talented employees who are able to adopt the modern work style and effectively use modern communication tools. For this reason, this research does not focus on the objective measures of office interruptions, but aims to find those disruption factors which influence the comfort and job satisfaction of employees, and the way how they feel generally at work. The focus of this research is on how employees feel about the different types of interruptions, which are those they themselves identify as hindering factors, and those they feel as stress factors. By identifying and then reducing these destructive factors, job satisfaction can reach a higher level and employee turnover can be reduced. During the research, we collected information from depth interviews and questionnaires asking about work environment, communication channels used in the workplace, individual communication preferences, factors considered as disruptions, and individual steps taken to avoid interruptions. The questionnaire was completed by 141 office workers from several types of workplaces based in Hungary. Even though 66 respondents are working at Hungarian offices of multinational companies, the research is about the characteristics of the Hungarian labor force. The most important result of the research shows that while more than one third of the respondents consider office noise as a disturbing factor, personal inquiries are welcome and considered useful, even if in such cases the work environment will not be convenient to solve tasks requiring concentration. Analyzing the sizes of the offices, in an open-space environment, the rate of those who consider office noise as a disturbing factor is surprisingly lower than in smaller office rooms. Opinions are more diverse regarding information communication technologies. In addition to the interruption factors affecting the employees' job satisfaction, the research also focuses on the role of the offices in the 21st century.
Keywords: Information overload, interruption, job satisfaction, office environment, work efficiency.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9791738 User Experience Evolution Lifecycle Framework
Authors: Maissom Qanber Abbasi, Philip Lew, Irfan Rafique, Zhang Li
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Perceptions of quality from both designers and users perspective have now stretched beyond the traditional usability, incorporating abstract and subjective concepts. This has led to a shift in human computer interaction research communities- focus; a shift that focuses on achieving user experience (UX) by not only fulfilling conventional usability needs but also those that go beyond them. The term UX, although widely spread and given significant importance, lacks consensus in its unified definition. In this paper, we survey various UX definitions and modeling frameworks and examine them as the foundation for proposing a UX evolution lifecycle framework for understanding UX in detail. In the proposed framework we identify the building blocks of UX and discuss how UX evolves in various phases. The framework can be used as a tool to understand experience requirements and evaluate them, resulting in better UX design and hence improved user satisfaction.Keywords: Usability, user experience lifecycle, user satisfaction
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26261737 The Event of the World in Martin Heidegger’s Early Hermeneutical Phenomenology
Authors: Guelfo Carbone
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The paper focuses on Heidegger’s 1919-1920 early research in order to point out his hermeneutical phenomenology of the life-world, arguing that the concept of world (Welt) is the main philosophical trigger for the phenomenology of factical life. Accordingly, the argument of the paper is twofold: First, the phenomenological hermeneutics of facticity is preceded both chronologically and philosophically by an original phenomenological investigation of life-world, in which the world is construed as the context of the givenness of life. Second, the phenomenology of life-world anticipates the question of being (Seinsfrage), but it also follows it, once this latter is shattered, the question of world as event remaining at the very core of Heidegger’s last meditations on the dominion of technology and the post-metaphysical abode of human beings on earth.
Keywords: Life-world, Heidegger, phenomenology, hermeneutics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4801736 Qualitative Data Analysis for Health Care Services
Authors: Taner Ersoz, Filiz Ersoz
Abstract:
This study was designed enable application of multivariate technique in the interpretation of categorical data for measuring health care services satisfaction in Turkey. The data was collected from a total of 17726 respondents. The establishment of the sample group and collection of the data were carried out by a joint team from The Ministry of Health and Turkish Statistical Institute (Turk Stat) of Turkey. The multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was used on the data of 2882 respondents who answered the questionnaire in full. The multiple correspondence analysis indicated that, in the evaluation of health services females, public employees, younger and more highly educated individuals were more concerned and complainant than males, private sector employees, older and less educated individuals. Overall 53 % of the respondents were pleased with the improvements in health care services in the past three years. This study demonstrates the public consciousness in health services and health care satisfaction in Turkey. It was found that most the respondents were pleased with the improvements in health care services over the past three years. Awareness of health service quality increases with education levels. Older individuals and males would appear to have lower expectancies in health services.
Keywords: Multiple correspondence analysis, optimal scaling, multivariate categorical data, health care services, health satisfaction survey, statistical visualizing, Turkey.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 875