Assessing the investment environment in container terminals: A knowledge gap model

This paper aims to evaluate the investment environment in container terminals (CTs) in one seaport from the attitudes of both terminal operators (TOs) and port companies (PCs). Evaluation criteria (ECs) regarding the investment environment in CTs are first created based on the prior literature and the CTs’ operational characteristics. A knowledge gap model based on an improved fuzzy AHP approach is then developed to assess the perceived differences on the ECs between TOs and PCs, by which the PCs managers could formulate practical policies to improve their investment environment in CTs. As an empirical study, the Taiwan International Port Corporation (TIPC) and its terminal operators in Kaohsiung port are examined to verify the research model. Results indicate that ECs with higher knowledge gap for TIPC include: Intra-port coopetition, Number of shipping carriers, and Business tax. Based on the result, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Prediction of long-term mortality by using machine learning models in Chinese patients with connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease

Background The exact risk assessment is crucial for the management of connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) patients. In the present study, we develop a nomogram to predict 3‑ and 5-year mortality by using machine learning approach and test the ILD-GAP model in Chinese CTD-ILD patients. Methods CTD-ILD patients who were diagnosed and treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University were enrolled based on a prior well-designed criterion between February 2011 and July 2018. Cox regression with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) was used to screen out the predictors and generate a nomogram. Internal validation was performed using bootstrap resampling. Then, the nomogram and ILD-GAP model were assessed via likelihood ratio testing, Harrell’s C index, integrated discrimination improvement (IDI), the net reclassification improvement (NRI) and decision curve analysis. Results A total of 675 consecutive CTD-ILD patients were enrolled in this study, during the median follow-up period of 50 (interquartile range, 38–65) months, 158 patients died (mortality rate 23.4%). After feature selection, 9 variables were identified: age, rheumatoid arthritis, lung diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide, right ventricular diameter, right atrial area, honeycombing, immunosuppressive agents, aspartate transaminase and albumin. A predictive nomogram was generated by integrating these variables, which provided better mortality estimates than ILD-GAP model based on the likelihood ratio testing, Harrell’s C index (0.767 and 0.652 respectively) and calibration plots. Application of the nomogram resulted in an improved IDI (3- and 5-year, 0.137 and 0.136 respectively) and NRI (3- and 5-year, 0.294 and 0.325 respectively) compared with ILD-GAP model. In addition, the nomogram was more clinically useful revealed by decision curve analysis. Conclusions The results from our study prove that the ILD-GAP model may exhibit an inapplicable role in predicting mortality risk in Chinese CTD-ILD patients. The nomogram we developed performed well in predicting 3‑ and 5-year mortality risk of Chinese CTD-ILD patients, but further studies and external validation will be required to determine the clinical usefulness of the nomogram.

Infrastructure Service Assessment Model Based on a Service Quality Gap Model—Focused on South Korea

To improve the quality of life (QOL) of the citizen, it is essential to not only to secure a quantitative stock, such as the number or extension of individual infrastructure, but to also understand the perspective of the public on service levels and the demand for infrastructure. In this study, an infrastructure service level assessment model that reflects the demands of citizens is proposed, and the importance and adequacy of infrastructure service indexes for setting priorities and goals for the investment of government funds in infrastructure are verified. The evaluation items used in this model included usability, accessibility, and recovery speed. The infrastructure service level for 12,500 Korean citizens was surveyed using the proposed assessment model, and the results reveal that the satisfaction of citizens with their residences had a significant effect on the QOL improvement, and that the level of infrastructure performance in a residential area significantly affected the satisfaction of citizens with their residences. In addition, the results revealed that the quantitative and qualitative aspects of infrastructure should be simultaneously considered. Lastly, the possible application of this model for the evaluation of the effectiveness of investment for infrastructure improvement is proposed.

Expectations of student with disability living in off-campus student housing in Ghana: a Gap Model approach

PurposePrevious students' housing studies have neglected the need to study all-inclusive student housing and quality of services delivery among students with disability. This study explores the expectations in students' housing among university students living with disabilities (SWDs) in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a mixed-methods approach, involving 423 SWD selected from five public and three private universities across Ghana. Grounded on the Gap Model, the study employed exploratory factor analysis to extract factors of service quality delivery and universal building design for SWD living in off-campus students' housing.FindingsThe study uncovered that, expectations of SWD regarding building design specifications hinges more on inbuilt universal design than external building environment designs. SWD are more interested in safety, health, managerial assurances and security. In all, five factors provided a huge gap in services quality delivered by off-campus students' housing.Practical implicationsThe Gap Model technique offers a framework that provides an insight for students' housing investors, managers, researchers and local authorities that provides an insight on the needs of SWD in student housing, thus making it possible to attain satisfactions amongst SWD.Originality/valueUnlike health-related studies that deals with expectations of all-inclusive buildings for persons with disability in hospitals, this study uniquely uncovered the expectations of services delivery and building design support to SWD in the Ghanaian context.

Mortality prediction in chronic interstitial lung diseases (ILDs): ILD-GAP (gender age physiology) and (the new modified classification) TNMC-ILD-GAP

Introduction: The interstitial lung disease-gender age physiology (ILD-GAP) model has been proposed on the lines of GAP-idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to predict mortality in chronic ILDs, other than IPF. We replaced diffusion capacity of lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO) with the easy to perform 6-minute walk distance (6 MWD) in the ILD-GAP and proposed the new modified classification (TNMC)-ILD-GAP model. Our aim was to demonstrate the usefulness of the TNMC-ILD-GAP as a predictor of mortality in all chronic ILDs and compare the results with the ILD-GAP. Methods: It was a retrospective observational study conducted at a tertiary care centre. Baseline characteristics of the patients among different ILD groups were analysed. A 3-year follow-up was recorded. The results were compared with the original ILDGAP model. Chi-square and paired t-test was used for comparison of qualitative and quantitative data, respectively. Results: Mean ages were 62.34 (±9.85), 57.9 (±11.6), 46.1 (±14.6) and 55.5 (±14.7) in IPF, non-specific interstitial pneumonitis (NSIP), connective tissue disease (CTD) and unclassifiable groups, respectively. There were 50%, 18%, 26% and 55% males in the four categories respectively. Mean 6 MWD was 227 m, 302 m, 342 m, and 332 m. Mean PaO2 was 64 mmHg, 70 mmHg, 75 mmHg, 69 mmHg. Mean forced vital capacity (FVC) (percentage predicted) was 52, 49, 51 and 54. Most of the patients had comorbidities, among which pulmonary hypertension was the most common. Mortality with ILD-GAP model and TNMC-ILD-GAP showed concordant results as the difference in mortality predicted by ILD-GAP and the TNMC-ILD-GAP models was statistically insignificant (P > 0.050). Conclusion: 6 MWD can serve as a reliable replacement for DLCO in the ILD-GAP model, especially in resource limited settings.

The optimal emergency decision-making method with incomplete probabilistic information

Emergencies often occur irregularly, such as infectious diseases, earthquakes, wars, floods, the diffusion and leakage of chemically toxic and harmful substances, etc. These emergencies can bring huge disasters to people, even worse, the time left for people to make critical decisions is usually very limited. When an emergency occurs, the most important thing for people is to make reasonable decisions as soon as possible to deal with the current problems, otherwise, the situation may deteriorate further. The paper proposes an emergency decision-making algorithm under the constraints of the limited time and incomplete information, the research is mainly carried out from the following aspects, firstly, we use the data structure of the hesitant fuzzy probabilistic linguistic set to collect the basic data after careful comparison, which has three advantages, (1) considering the hesitation in the decision-making process, each evaluation information is allowed to contain multiple values instead of just one value; (2) each evaluation value is followed by a probability value, which further describes the details of the evaluation information; (3) the data structure allows some probability information to be unknown, which effectively expands the application scope of the algorithm. Secondly, the maximization gap model is proposed to calculate unknown parameters, the model can distinguish alternatives with small differences. Thirdly, all the evaluation information will be aggregated by the dynamic hesitant probability fuzzy weighted arithmetic operator. Subsequently, an instance is given to illustrate the effectiveness and the accuracy of the algorithm proposed in the paper. Finally, the advantages of the proposed algorithm are further demonstrated by comparing it with other outstanding algorithms. The main contribution of the paper is that we propose the maximization gap model to obtain the unknown parameters, which can effectively and accurately distinguish alternatives with small differences.

Detecting Service quality influence using DINESERV model: A study with the reference to restaurants in Dhaka city

Number of studies related to assessing service quality through Service quality gap model, known as SERVQUAL model in tourism and hospitality industries is seen either originally or with developed version. The main aim of this study is focused assessing empirically on the developed version of SERVQUAL model for measuring the service quality for restaurant services known as DINESERV, in the context of restaurant services in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. The comprised 29 attributes of SERVQUALL model is DINESERV, that is used for designing the questionnaires in this study, which aimed to measure the gap between expectation and perception level of customers in restaurant service. However, 110 valid questionnaires from 150 has been statistically analyzed in SPSS20. This empirical study makes a glance that 25 indicators have rooms to make more improvement due to persisting gap between expectations and perceptions, meanwhile, results and findings have been complied with the identification of strength and weakness of service quality of selected oldest restaurants of Dhaka city, who can uphold their dignity through the possible suggestions from this study

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Torque Properties of Rotary Elastomer Particle Damper considering the Effect of Gap and No Gap between Rotor and Body of the Damper

Particle dampers are devices used to control the vibration of mechanical systems. In this research, prototypes of rotary elastomer particle dampers are experimentally tested considering gap and no gap between shaft and cylinder. There is a gap between the rotor and cylinder in the gap model; particles can move from one chamber to another. There is no space for the particles to move from one chamber to another in the no-gap model. Elastomer particles are soft, and they have different behavior from hard (metallic) particles. Experiments on rotary elastomer particle dampers considering the gap between rotor and cylinder helped investigate the effects of the change in packing fraction, rotational speed, size of elastomers, and the gap between the rotor and the damper body. A numerical simulation approach based on the discrete element analysis method is used to perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the rotary elastomer particle damper. The simulation results are in great agreement with the experiment results. It is observed that packing fraction, rotational speed, size of elastomer particles, and the gap between rotor and cylinder play a vital role in producing higher damper torque.