scholarly journals An Exponentially Distributed Stochastic Model for Sustainability Measurement of a Healthcare System

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faramarz Khosravi ◽  
Gokhan Izbirak ◽  
Kehinde Adewale Adesina

As the global environment is getting more competitive, sustainability is increasingly becoming an important assessment tool. An exponential distribution stochastic model is developed for the purpose of assessing and measuring the sustainability of healthcare system. The aim of this study is to provide a sustainability measuring model that is driven by the actual distribution status of the sustainability indicators. In this paper, the notions of the “Triple Bottom Line” (TBL) are followed in deriving the sustainability challenge and capacity indicators for the environmental, social, and economic indicators. Since basic challenges and capacities depend on the modes of the organization, the study proposes an exponentially distributed stochastic model for measuring sustainability. A numerical illustration of Iranian healthcare is presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed model. In the results obtained, sustainability index for environmental, economic, and social are 54.40%, 48.80%, and 66.80% respectively. It indicates the healthcare achieved some sustainability through the social aspect; therefore, improving the environmental and economic aspect of the TBL is necessary. The proposed model can be used as a panoramic tool for effective measurement of the sustainability level of any healthcare system.

Author(s):  
Jane Stevenson

This chapter examines the social aspect of the interwar arts. It demonstrates that the genuinely innovative were almost all dependent on personal patronage to support the early stages of their career. The necessity of clientage relationships influenced what was achieved, since the patrons’ interests could not be discounted. Cultural capital was exchanged for social opportunity and financial support. This also gave particular opportunities to gay people of both genders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8523
Author(s):  
Rosemarie Garay ◽  
Francis Pfenniger ◽  
Miguel Castillo ◽  
Consuelo Fritz

Wood industrialization provides a contribution to timber-based building. The Chilean market is based on attributes such as the experience and trust of companies. The sales price, meeting deadlines and quality are attributes that have motivated buyers. There are more attributes to assess that are important for the client and market country: building materials and safety, sustainability, and environmental assessment. Some of these valuations are provided by certifications such as life cycle analysis, reduction of energy, water, gas consumption, thermal, acoustic insulation, fire resistance, etc. The objective is to propose an evaluation tool using sustainability indicators for prefabricated lumber-based buildings, using technical benefits of wood as an option for manufacturing prefabricated structures. They constitute references that can be integrated with international construction standards and with it, a process of improvement of the current standards for the housing solution and protection of the environment. The methodology is based on standards compliance levels, according to current, voluntary, or referential regulations, seeking to differentiate the market offer of prefabricated homes through quality indicators, benchmarking and sustainability. The results are an evaluation model synthesized into three tables according to the category evaluated: materials, products, or structures. It concludes that, to meet demand, the market must adapt its offer to new requirements where it does matter how the housing is produced, not only in the economic aspect, but also its impact on the social aspect and the environment and what it offers in terms of quality of life. The lumber-based building sector needs sustainability attributes indicators to potentiate the companies and start a differentiation business.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Quanshen Wei ◽  
Lei Zhang ◽  
Baojiao Wang ◽  
Wen-Hsien Ho

Conventional recommender systems are designed to achieve high prediction accuracy by recommending items expected to be the most relevant and interesting to users. Therefore, they tend to recommend only the most popular items. Studies agree that diversity of recommendations is as important as accuracy because it improves the customer experience by reducing monotony. However, increasing diversity reduces accuracy. Thus, a recommendation algorithm is needed to recommend less popular items while maintaining acceptable accuracy. This work proposes a two-stage collaborative filtering optimization mechanism that obtains a complete and diversified item list. The first stage of the model incorporates multiple interests to optimize neighbor selection. In addition to using conventional collaborative filtering to predict ratings by exploiting available ratings, the proposed model further considers the social relationships of the user. A novel ranking strategy is then used to rearrange the list of top-N items while maintaining accuracy by (1) rearranging the area controlled by the threshold and by (2) maximizing popularity while maintaining an acceptable reduction in accuracy. An extensive experimental evaluation performed in a real-world dataset confirmed that, for a given loss of accuracy, the proposed model achieves higher diversity compared to conventional approaches.


2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 807-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Fieldhouse ◽  
David Cutts

Previous research shows that the household context is a crucial source of influence on turnout. This article sets out a relational theory of voting in which turnout is dependent on the existence of relational selective consumption benefits. The study provides empirical tests of key elements of the proposed model using household survey data from Great Britain. First, building on expressive theories of voting, it examines the extent to which shared partisan identification enhances turnout. Secondly, extending theories of voting as a social norm, it tests whether the civic norms of citizens’ families or households affect turnout over and above the social norms of the individual. In accordance with expectations of expressive theories of voting, it finds that having a shared party identification with other members of the household increases turnout. It also finds that the civic duty of other household members is important in explaining turnout, even when allowing for respondent’s civic duty.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda de Paula Aguiar-Barbosa ◽  
Adriana Fumi Chim-Miki ◽  
Metin Kozak

PurposeThe objective of this study was to analyze the evolution of tourism competitiveness over the years, ascertaining the state of the art and the degree of consensus among scholars on its constituent elements to propose an integrative and updated concept.Design/methodology/approachA set of 130 definitions on tourism competitiveness formulated between 1999–2018 was analyzed and segmented into three periods, allowing its historical evolution to be ascertained. It is a qualitative and quantitative exploratory research that uses a combination of techniques, namely, content analysis, analysis of co-words and consensus analysis.FindingsThe results indicated a low use of elements such as the quality of life and the environment in the authors' definitions during 1999–2018, although these elements were present in the first concept of tourism competitiveness by Crouch and Ritchie (1999, 2003). Another finding of this study shows a reduction in the analysis of tourism competitiveness based on the supply and demand side. Nowadays, the research tends to turn on the basis of the population directly affected. It also reveals the enrichment of the theoretical corpus with new lines of research arising and new groups of scholars of the subject, consequently a new frontier in tourism competitiveness.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors recommend deepening the analysis in each category of conceptual elements of tourism competitiveness to identify the origins of the low consensus. The authors also suggest conducting further research on the largest invisible schools of thought on this subject to understand their relations and perspectives, and thus to advance in the theoretical streams of the field. Finally, it is imperative to develop research on new models and monitors of tourism competitiveness that meet its renewed concept and integrate dimensions to consider the perspective of supply, demand, tourists and residents, as well as not excluding the economic bias but including the social side.Practical implicationsOwing to the fact that monitors of tourism competitiveness have practically no variables related to the social, most of the surveys are carried out from the supply or demand perspective, leaving the resident distant from the process. In this way, the results allow authors to indicate that new models of competitiveness measurement should be formulated based on the vision of the community impacted by tourism, i.e. a new version of tourism competitiveness not based on productivity but rather on the social aspect.Originality/valueThe findings of this study contribute to the field literature by offering an integrative concept of tourism competitiveness based on the elements with a higher level of consensus among researchers. Furthermore, the results accentuate a worrying fact regarding the operationalization of this concept, as the theoretical basis is not expressed in the monitors of competitiveness. Thus, nor it is possible in the management of the tourism industry.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Daniel Bennett

This article reviews relevant literature and proposes a theoretically grounded conceptual model by which to inform, and potentially advance, the exploratory study of the effects of neighborhood disorder on the psychosocial, emotional, and cultural pathways that are thought to influence social and developmental outcomes for African American youth and young adults. Similar to the social determinants of health model which asserts that the distribution of social and economic resources across populations influences differences in health status, the proposed model posits that environment determines social and developmental outcomes and hence life-course trajectories.


2021 ◽  
pp. 79-113
Author(s):  
A.N. Veraksa ◽  
N.E. Veraksa

The review is devoted to the relationship between executive functions and metacognition in the context of a cultural-historical perspective. On the basis of the research carried out over the past 15 years, the commonality and differences of these constructs are shown. Special attention is paid to the development of executive functions and metacognition, their connection with the academic success of children, the role of the social aspect in their formation. The importance of an adult in the directed formation of metacognition and self-regulation is shown, which confirms the provisions of the cultural-historical theory. Within the framework of the cultural-historical paradigm, several mechanisms for the development of executive functions are considered: imitation based on understanding; sign mediation; as well as communication in a social developmental situation. L.S. Vygotsky noted that higher mental functions arise on the basis of real interactions of people, are interiorized, turning into psychological functions. The review showed that one of the most common models of the structure of executive functions is a model that includes such components as “working memory”, “inhibitory control” and “cognitive flexibility”. Based on the analysis, it is possible to assert the influence of J. Piaget’s concept on the development of executive functions. A certain difficulty is caused by the explanation of emotional regulation in the context of metacognitive problems. At the same time, L.S. Vygotsky spoke about the unity of affect and intellect, which suggests the existence behavioral control and, in particular, of emotional processes at the level of metacognitive processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11/1 (-) ◽  
pp. 37-39
Author(s):  
Olena POSHYVALOVA

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused grave and severe losses in many of the economies across the globe. The impact and the duration of the economic crisis occurring due to the pandemic among certain households is difficult to anticipate since the indeterminacy is being defined through the duration of the crisis and costs for the recovery of the economy. The purpose of the paper is to study theoretical aspects related to the assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the poverty of households. Methods. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study are modern theories, concepts, hypotheses. Comparative analysis is used. The methodological and information basis of the work are scientific works, materials of periodicals, information resources. Results. The paper incorporates a content analysis of studies focusing on the economic impact of the COVID-19 on the development of national economies. The majority of studies assess economic implications of the COVID-19 however they are concentrated on the macroeconomic and financial impact of the Corona Crisis. The impact on national economies is subsequently reduced to the microlevel, specifically the social and economic impact on individuals. Nonetheless, there is a need for a microanalysis which may better describe the interrelation between sectors and countries (the effect of macroeconomic aggregate indicators) and supplement the macroanalysis, providing more relevant evaluations of the impact of the distribution of income, outline the authorities of households, the role of people's savings, determine the resilience of households. The work establishes main assumptions and restrictions of formulating the model of impact of social and economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the poverty of households Conclusion. Taking into consideration the distribution of incomes for various sectors, the proposed model allows to ensure the assessment of losses in the consumption of households, savings depletion and time for their recovery. It has been proven that without the social protection of the population the Corona Crisis will lead to a massive economic shock for the national economy. Prospects of further studies lie in the assessment of the impact of indirect macro-level factors, role of indeterminacy in the decision-making of households and implications in case of numerous waves of social crisis as well as the possible effect in the condition of concurrent exogenous shocks.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (23) ◽  
pp. 8058
Author(s):  
Christian E. Galarza ◽  
Jonathan M. Palma ◽  
Cecilia F. Morais ◽  
Jaime Utria ◽  
Leonardo P. Carvalho ◽  
...  

This paper proposes a new theoretical stochastic model based on an abstraction of the opportunistic model for opportunistic networks. The model is capable of systematically computing the network parameters, such as the number of possible routes, the probability of successful transmission, the expected number of broadcast transmissions, and the expected number of receptions. The usual theoretical stochastic model explored in the methodologies available in the literature is based on Markov chains, and the main novelty of this paper is the employment of a percolation stochastic model, whose main benefit is to obtain the network parameters directly. Additionally, the proposed approach is capable to deal with values of probability specified by bounded intervals or by a density function. The model is validated via Monte Carlo simulations, and a computational toolbox (R-packet) is provided to make the reproduction of the results presented in the paper easier. The technique is illustrated through a numerical example where the proposed model is applied to compute the energy consumption when transmitting a packet via an opportunistic network.


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