Search results

We study the problem of finding optimal locations for a suite of defense assets in order to protect high-value tactical and strategic infrastructure across a vast geographical area. To this end, we present a multi-type with non-overlapping coverage requirement as an extension to the classical formulation for the maximal covering location problem (MCLP).

In our case study, we use open source geographic and demographic data from Canadian sources as inputs to our optimization problem. Due to the complexity of the MIP formulation, we propose a hybrid metaheuristic solution approach, for which a genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed and integrated with local and large neighborhood search operators.

Extensive numerical experiments over different instances of the proposed problem indicate the effectiveness of the GA-based solution in reducing the solution time by a factor of ten compared to the CPLEX commercial solver while both approaches obtain solutions of similar quality.

This research is limited to location planning of defense assets leveraging geospatial data of Canada. However, the diverse Canadian geography is among the most challenging given broad variability in population density and the vast size of the country leading to a large search space having substantial variability in fitness performance.

Our findings demonstrate that for large-scale location searches, the GA with a local neighborhood search performs very well in comparison to CPLEX but at a fraction of the execution time.

Our findings provide insight into how to make improved decisions for the placement of deterrence and defense systems and the effectiveness of a hybrid metaheuristic in addressing associated computational challenges.

This study aims to explore the critical influencing factors that lead to the site selection failure of waste-to-energy (WtE) projects in China under the influence of the “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) effect, which can provide references to improve the decision-making process of similar projects in the future.

The fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method was used to propose an analytical framework for exploring the critical influencing factors affecting the site selection failure of WtE projects. The causal relationship between different influencing factors is finally determined on the basis of the opinions of 12 experts from universities, government departments, consulting units, planning and design units, construction units and WtE enterprises.

Results showed that six crucial factors resulted in the site selection failure of WtE projects from the NIMBY effect perspective: “Insufficient public participation,” “Near the place of residence,” “Nonstandard government decision-making processes,” “Low information disclosure,” “Destroys the surrounding environment,” and “Imperfect compensation scheme.”

Results can determine the priorities and causal relationships among the various influencing factors. The decision-making optimization suggestions can provide reference for decision- makers, thereby possibly promoting the scientific and standardization of site selection decision process.

As the need for effective physician leaders caring for underserved populations grows, it is important to initiate interventions for medical professionals early in their education. Board experience on a student-run free clinic serving vulnerable populations within the community has the potential to educate medical students in a hands-on environment. This paper aims to determine if serving as a leader of a student-run free clinic impacts leadership skills and future leadership goals of medical students.

Medical students leading a student-run free clinic completed an anonymous electronic survey to determine how this experience affected their teamwork skills, interprofessional leadership skills and future leadership career goals. The survey consisted of 12 items to which students responded with how closely they agreed via a five-point Likert scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Descriptive statistics are reported.

From the 46 students (42.2% response rate) responding to the survey, 95.45% had a previous leadership experience and 89.2% expressed previous interest in a leadership position. Students scored on average 4.36 (out of 5) for improvement in teamwork skills, 4.34 (out of 5) for improvement in interprofessional skills and 3.88 (out of 5) for impact on future leadership career goals.

This study suggests that service on a student-run free clinic improves teamwork and interprofessional leadership skills as well as future leadership plans of medical students in an underserved vulnerable population environment. Other institutions could use student-run free clinics for early development of effective leaders in medical health care for the vulnerable population.

Credit risk evaluation is a crucial task for banks and non-bank financial institutions to support decision-making on granting loans. Most of the current credit risk methods rely solely on expert knowledge or large amounts of data, which causes some problems like variable interactions hard to be identified, models lack interpretability, etc. To address these issues, the authors propose a new approach.

First, the authors improve interpretive structural model (ISM) to better capture and utilize expert knowledge, then combine expert knowledge with big data and the proposed fuzzy interpretive structural model (FISM) and K2 are used for expert knowledge acquisition and big data learning, respectively. The Bayesian network (BN) obtained is used for forward inference and backward inference. Data from Lending Club demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Compared with the mainstream risk evaluation methods, the authors’ approach not only has higher accuracy and better presents the interaction between risk variables but also provide decision-makers with the best possible interventions in advance to avoid defaults in the financial field. The credit risk assessment framework based on the proposed method can serve as an effective tool for relevant policymakers.

The authors propose a novel credit risk evaluation approach, namely FISM-K2. It is a decision support method that can improve the ability of decision makers to predict risks and intervene in advance. As an attempt to combine expert knowledge and big data, the authors’ work enriches the research on financial risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine organizational commitment within nonprofit organizations and demonstrate the effectiveness of benchmarking attitudinal constructs.

A web based 21 question survey was conducted utilizing a professional organization's membership list. The survey was then analyzed to determine if differences could be found in a local market compared to the larger (geographic) sample. Manova was used to examine mean differences across the variables.

The results revealed six constructs where attitudinal differences occurred. The differences allow management to determine if they are even with, above or below the average for the larger region and adjust management practices accordingly to increase organizational commitment.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further with a larger national sample.

Benchmarking organizational commitment allows management to adjust practices to improve and retain employees. Retaining employees saves the cost of training and ensures continued delivery of services.

This paper fulfils an identified need to demonstrate the utility of benchmarking against a sample of peer organizations in the realm of organizational behavior and human resources constructs. This also extends the literature in the area of nonprofit management.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive research model that can explain customers’ continuance intentions to adopt and use intelligent personal assistants (IPAs).

This study proposes and validates a new theoretical model that extends the parasocial relationship (PSR) theory. Partial least squares analysis is employed to test the research model and corresponding hypotheses on data collected from 304 survey samples.

Interpersonal attraction (task attraction, social attraction, and physical attraction) and security/privacy risk are important factors affecting the adoption of IPAs.

First, this is the first empirical study to examine user acceptance of IPAs. Second, to the authors’ knowledge, no research has been conducted to test the role of PSR in the context of IPAs. Third, this study verified the robustness of the proposed model by introducing new antecedents reflecting risk-related attributes, which has not been investigated in prior PSR research. But this study has limitations that future research may address. First, key findings of this research are based only on data from users in the USA. Second, individual differences among the survey respondents were not examined.

To increase the adoption of IPAs, manufacturers should focus on developing “human-like” and “professional” assistants, in consideration of the important role of PSR and task attraction. R&D should continuously strive to realize artificial intelligence technology advances so that IPAs can better recognize the user’s voice and speak naturally like a person. Collaboration with third-party companies or individual developers is essential in this field, as manufacturers are unable to independently develop applications that support the specific tasks of various industries. It is also necessary to enhance IPA device design and its user interface to enhance physical attraction.

This study is the first empirical attempt to examine user acceptance of IPAs, as most of the prior literature has concerned analysis of usage patterns or technical features.

The purpose of this study was to examine hedonic hunger at the end of the Ramadan fasting.

Data were collected by the Power of Food Scale (PFS), Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T) and the Visual Analogue Scale. All data were taken twice at the beginning and end of Ramadan fasting.

A total number of 105 volunteers (43.8% female and 56.2% male) participated in a cross-sectional study. Ramadan fasting associated with PFS food tasted sub-factor, whereas no association was found on PFS aggregate and other PFS domain factors. Participants had higher PFS food tasted domain score at the end of the Ramadan fasting than before Ramadan fasting (p < 0.001). Total FCQ-T score as well as all sub-domains did not differ significantly. Females desired to consume carbonated beverages more, whereas in male (p = 0.04), ice cream was the most craved food.

The findings of this study provide data to the literature about the relation between Ramadan fasting and hedonic hunger. Ramadan fasting appears to have an influence on pleasure at first bite. The effect of Ramadan fasting on hedonic hunger should be tested with larger samples and controlled trials.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the flame retardancy properties of cotton fabrics with treatment of phosphorus and nitrogen containing silane-based nanosol by sol-gel process.

Nanosols containing tetraethoxysilane or (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane as precursors, (3-glycidyloxypropyl) trimethoxysilane as cross-linking agent and guanidine phosphate monobasic as flame retarding agent were impregnated on cotton fabrics. Flame retardancy properties of the fabric samples were determined by limited flame spread test and limited oxygen index (LOI) test. In addition, microstructural and surface morphological properties of the fabric samples were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope.

Depending on the limited flame spread test, the authors show that the coated fabric samples gain flame retardancy properties and the LOI value of the samples increased as to 45.7 per cent by the synergistic effect of phosphorus-nitrogen-silicon.

There have some studies in flame retardancy behaviour of textiles. In this study, flame retardant cotton fabric with very low weight in grams was improved by sol-gel process. Moreover, ecological process was provided thanks to using halogen-free flame retardant.

In this study, an eco-friendly cotton fabric (CF) treatment method was proposed to induce anti-ultraviolet and flame retardant properties, and a new application of tannic acid (TA) and phytic acid (PA) in ultraviolet protection and flame retardant fabric was put forward.

By combining diethylenetriamine, PA and TA on CF, a chemical reaction intumescent flame retardant CF with anti-ultraviolet and anti-flame retardance was developed.

The flame retardant and ultraviolet resistance of CF were characterized by LOI, vertical combustion, cone calorimetry and ultraviolet resistance testing. SEM, XPS, FTIR and other tests were used to analyze the chemical composition, surface morphology and residual carbon after combustion of the CF, and it was confirmed that the modified CF has good ultraviolet resistance and flame retardant performance.

In this study, an eco-friendly CF treatment method was proposed to induce anti-ultraviolet and flame retardant properties, and a new application of TA and PA in ultraviolet protection and flame retardant fabric was put forward.

This study aims to apply parasocial relationship theory to understand the hospitality brand-consumer relationship on social media. Aiming to examine brand-initiated mechanisms that drive relationship development, the study identified two sets of brand actions as antecedents, namely, content-related (utilitarian and hedonic benefits) and interaction-related factors (perceived interactivity and openness). This study also investigated the subsequent impacts of parasocial relationships on customer engagement behaviors and brand loyalty. As baby boomers are an important but understudied consumer cohort in social media marketing, this study empirically tested the proposed model for this specific group.

A survey was conducted electronically with baby boomer consumers from the USA. The partial least squares analysis was used to test the model validity for this consumer group.

The results of this study showed that content-related factors had significant effects on the parasocial relationship, which, in turn, significantly influenced customer engagement and brand loyalty.

This study responds to the recent calls from scholars on developing and expanding a nomological network of parasocial relationships to understand consumer-brand relationships in social media. By focusing on baby boomers, this study adds unique insights on understanding online relationships and engagement, specifically for this cohort. Future studies should expand the study by examining other generations, platform differences or using longitudinal methods.

This study informs hospitality marketers in the development and implementation of a successful Facebook relationship building campaign targeting baby boomers.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study known to have developed a coherent parasocial relationship model that combined content-related benefits, interaction-related factors, online engagement and brand loyalty. It also represents one of the few to examine how hospitality brands can build a parasocial relationship with baby boomers, an important but cohort, on social media and provide actionable insights to hospitality marketers for this generation.