Add-on Services Research Articles

Predictors of community mental health nursing services use in Switzerland: Results from a representative national survey.

Community mental health services are the service of choice in the mental health field. In recent years, demand for these services has increased significantly. Nurses play a central role in community mental health services. Nevertheless, predictive factors of the use of such services are unclear, especially in Switzerland. This study aimed to examine relevant predictors of persons with mental health problems' use of community mental health nursing services in Switzerland. Swiss Health Survey 2017 data were used to compare those who use community mental health nursing services with those who do not. We found that age, number of doctor visits, problems with instrumental activities of daily life, use of informal help, use of emergency services, taking psychotropic medication, being female, and living without a partner were positive predictors, while experiencing severe physical symptoms was a negative predictor. Several of our findings confirm the similarity between the utilization of community mental health nursing services and the use of community mental health services in general. Our results suggest that community mental health nursing services deserve the same prominent place in the mental health system and its corresponding policies. This should be taken as an argument for policy development and better reimbursement. In research, health surveys should focus on nursing and need-related questions. Additionally, it is necessary to develop community mental health nursing services from an add-on service into independent nursing services and evaluate these services.

EVALUATING PROTOTYPING SUPPORT IN EARLY TRANSFORMATIVE PSS DESIGN

AbstractPrototypes are an established tool for rapidly increasing learning, communication and decision making rationale for design projects. The proven success has spawned a litany of approaches and methods for building and planning the efficient planning and construction of prototypes. Translating these methods into simple usable tools to assist novice designers has generated broadly applicable canvases to support prototyping across the design process. Product Service System design has similarly introduced prototyping methods and tools into the process. Presently there is a lack of support for generating early phase tangible prototypes for functional PSS design aimed at more radically innovative solutions instead of currently dominant traditional products with traditional add-on services. This work explores the viability of utilizing existing prototyping support tools in the context of early PSS design through workshops with student designers and practitioners. The data from these workshops illuminates the alignments and misalignment gaps presented as guidelines to enable better support for early PSS designers.

PENGARUH PERCEIVED VALUE, BRAND IMAGE TERHADAP CUSTOMER LOYALTY MELALUI CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT SEBAGAI VARIABEL MEDIASI (STUDI PADA PELANGAN INDIHOME PT. TELKOM MANADO)

The study aims to analyze the effect of Perceived Value and Brand Image on Customer Loyalty with Customer Engagement as a Mediation Variable for Indihome Customers at PT. Telkom Manado. The population of this research were Indihome customers in Manado. Sampling was carried out based on Isaac Michael's table of 267 respondents. The research data were analyzed using PLS SEM (Partial Least Square - Structural Equation Modeling) with SmartPLS 3.0 software. The results showed that Perceived Value and Brand Image had an effect on Customer Engagement but did not directly influence Customer Loyalty. Perceived Value and Brand Image affect Customer Loyalty through Customer Engagement with full mediation. Customer Engagement affects Customer Loyalty. Indihome at Telkom Manado has already good at Perceived Value and Brand Image. However, the product still couldn't drive the loyal customers to buy any add-on services or ensure to a long time subscription. The company need to find strategies that can improve the customer engagement and customer loyalty with Indihome as a product. Keywords : Perceived Value, Brand Image, Customer Engagement, Customer Loyalty

Counseling of people with epilepsy via telemedicine: Experiences at a German tertiary epilepsy center during the COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionDriven by the challenges of alternative healthcare supply during the COVID-19 pandemic, acceptance and appreciation of telemedicine were assessed in a German tertiary epilepsy center. MethodsTwo hundred thirty-nine patients with epilepsy (53% female, 35% seizure-free, 97% on antiseizure medication) answered a structured audit on telemedical counseling as part of individual outpatients' care. ResultsOverall 82% of the participants were satisfied with the telemedical appointment. The telemedical appointment was rated equal to onsite appointments in means of time (91%), comprehensibility (94%), and opportunity to get answers to current questions (92%). It was evaluated as good as onsite appointments regarding comprehension of the disease (88%) and impact on following the physician's advice (82%). The participants considered immediate convenience and shortfall of travel expenses as advantages of telemedicine, whereas lack of personal contact and diagnostics (electroencephalogram [EEG] recordings, blood analysis) were seen as disadvantages. About 73% of the participants would appreciate the opportunity of future telemedical counseling, but the majority (75%) wished to have further appointments onsite. ConclusionsOverall, people with epilepsy appear to be satisfied with telemedical counseling. However, patients greatly appreciate the medical services onsite and consider telemedicine as an add-on service rather than a substitute to visits onsite.

Free add-on services and perceived value in competitive environments: Evidence from online hotel reviews

Abstract This study investigates how free add-on services affect customers’ perceived value in horizontal and vertical competition. We collected 349,879 reviews about over 3000 hotels in 25 U.S. cities from TripAdvisor. Using three balanced data sets generated by coarsened exact matching, the ordered logistic regressions show that free hotel add-on services (including free breakfast, parking, and WiFi) positively affect consumers’ perceived value. However, increased horizontal and vertical competition differentially weakens the positive effects of free add-on services. We not only observe a negative moderating effect of horizontal competition, but also identify three patterns of the marginal effects of these three add-ons in horizontal competition. The moderating effect of vertical competition exists from the higher-grade hotel segment to a lower-grade hotel, but such an effect is insignificant from the lower-grade hotel segment to a higher-grade hotel. Therefore, hotel managers should consider diverse external competitive environments and design appropriate differentiated service strategies.

Use of General Primary Care, Specialized Primary Care, and Other Veterans Affairs Services Among High-Risk Veterans

Integrated health care systems increasingly focus on improving outcomes among patients at high risk for hospitalization. Examining patterns of where patients obtain care could give health care systems insight into how to develop approaches for high-risk patient care; however, such information is rarely described. To assess use of general and specialized primary care, medical specialty, and mental health services among patients at high risk of hospitalization in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). This national, population-based, retrospective cross-sectional study included all veterans enrolled in any type of VHA primary care service as of September 30, 2015. Data analysis was performed from April 1, 2016, to January 1, 2019. Risk of hospitalization and assignment to general vs specialized primary care. High-risk veterans were defined as those who had the 5% highest risk of near-term hospitalization based on a validated risk prediction model; all others were considered low risk. Health care service use was measured by the number of encounters in general primary care, specialized primary care, medical specialty, mental health, emergency department, and add-on intensive management services (eg, telehealth and palliative care). The study assessed 4 309 192 veterans (mean [SD] age, 62.6 [16.0] years; 93% male). Male veterans (93%; odds ratio [OR], 1.11; 95% CI, 1.10-1.13), unmarried veterans (63%; OR, 2.30; 95% CI, 2.32-2.35), those older than 45 years (94%; 45-65 years of age: OR, 3.49 [95% CI, 3.44-3.54]; 66-75 years of age: OR, 3.04 [95% CI, 3.00-3.09]; and >75 years of age: OR, 2.42 [95% CI, 2.38-2.46]), black veterans (23%; OR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.61-1.64), and those with medical comorbidities (asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: 33%; OR, 4.03 [95% CI, 4.00-4.06]; schizophrenia: 4%; OR, 5.14 [95% CI, 5.05-5.22]; depression: 42%; OR, 3.10 [95% CI, 3.08-3.13]; and alcohol abuse: 20%; OR, 4.54 [95% CI, 4.50-4.59]) were more likely to be high risk (n = 351 012). Most (308 433 [88%]) high-risk veterans were assigned to general primary care; the remaining 12% (42 579 of 363 561) were assigned to specialized primary care (eg, women's health and homelessness). High-risk patients assigned to general primary care had more frequent primary care visits (mean [SD], 6.9 [6.5] per year) than those assigned to specialized primary care (mean [SD], 6.3 [7.3] per year; P < .001). They also had more medical specialty care visits (mean [SD], 4.4 [5.9] vs 3.7 [5.4] per year; P < .001) and fewer mental health visits (mean [SD], 9.0 [21.6] vs 11.3 [23.9] per year; P < .001). Use of intensive supplementary outpatient services was low overall. The findings suggest that, in integrated health care systems, approaches to support high-risk patient care should be embedded within general primary care and mental health care if they are to improve outcomes for high-risk patient populations.

Servicizing for the Environment? The Impact of Data-Centric Product-Service Models

New servicization model involves firms using data-centric technologies to improve their services by extracting consumer insights derived from product usage data. We refer to this ability as the service improvement capability. In this study, we build an analytical model to scrutinize the economic and environmental performance of two business models: 1) the product model under which products are sold at a fixed price and 2) the servicization model under which consumers are charged a pay-per-use price for the product. Contrary to prior beliefs, we find the use of service model does not always benefit the firm or the environment. In particular, when the service improvement capability is high and marginal production cost is low, the service model is more profitable for the firm; otherwise, the product model is more profitable. Moreover, the ability to create a higher service improvement capability, counterintuitively, may exacerbate the environmental impact. This result illustrates the tension arising between the benefits of servicization for firms and the negative environmental impact. We propose further extensions, including product pooling, product model with add-on service, hybrid model, consumer privacy concerns. Finally, our analysis details the win-win outcome under both product and service models, where a host of factors, including the degree of pooling, the product type, the level of service improvement, degree of privacy concerns, play an interactive effect. We discuss the relevant managerial implications.

Add-on Pricing: A Queuing Perspective

This work is motivated by the common practice of add-on pricing, where an add-on is not valuable unless purchased together with the main service. For example, many restaurants serve free bread or complimentary drinks (add-on) while diners are waiting for their entrees (main service) to be prepared. We explore the optimal strategy to sell the main and add-on services in a queuing context with delay-sensitive customers (preparing the entree in the kitchen is a queuing process that involves congestion-prone delays). We focus on two pricing schemes: bundle pricing that charges a single price to sell the two services altogether, and separate selling that charges distinct prices for each service. We show that in the absence of queuing, separate selling strictly dominates bundle pricing across the board. However, when there is queuing at the main service but not the add-on (e.g., entrees must be freshly cooked, but free bread is often prepared in large volumes in advance), bundle pricing is optimal under a large customer demand due to a capacity constraint and an endogenous queuing cost. When congestion takes place at both services, separate selling can dominate under a large customer demand, and when it does, we identify its strength in regulating congestion as the key driving force. These plots of reversals are principally driven by an intricate interplay between pricing, market coverage and congestion, and collectively demonstrate novel operational advantages of each pricing scheme.

Exploring servitization through the paradox lens: Coping practices in servitization

The study analyzes the coping practices that emerge when a manufacturer of standardized products and add-on services expands to provide customized solutions. Based on a comparative case study methodology conducted across four case companies, and an analysis of extensive documentary data, the study challenges the dichotomous ‘either-or thinking’ in servitization research and highlights ‘both-and thinking’ by identifying both paradoxes and coping practices. The study extends the literature by identifying four paradoxes in servitization: 1) effectiveness in the customization of solutions vs. efficiency in product manufacturing, 2) building a customer orientation vs. maintaining an engineering mindset, 3) organizing product and service integration vs. separated services and product organizations, and 4) exploratory innovation in solutions vs. exploitative innovation in product manufacturing. Moreover, the study identifies nine practices that manufacturing companies apply when coping with the paradoxical challenges that emerge during servitization. The findings may help manufacturing companies understand, accept, and address paradoxical challenges and balance tensions, as not all tensions can be resolved. The identification of these paradoxes allows us to understand the difficulties that manufacturing companies face during the servitization process and may help explain the servitization-deservitization trend among some manufacturing companies that some recent studies have identified.

Is it always advantageous to add-on item recommendation service with a contingent free shipping policy in platform retailing?

Abstract The add-on item recommendation service with a contingent free shipping (CFS) policy has provided new opportunities to meet customers’ needs and increase e-commerce platforms’ profits. We consider a game problem of e-commerce revenue management in which an e-commerce platform determines the optimal CFS decisions (the CFS threshold and the basic shipping fee pricing) under the recommendation service. The models without and with the recommendation service are established to investigate the effects of recommendation service strength on the product relevance, the optimal CFS decisions and the optimal profits. The results demonstrate that the recommendation service is not always beneficial to the platform, and the relatively high service strength increases the consumers’ shipping demand but reduces the consumers’ add-on item demand. Under the same recommendation service strength, the add-on item price is always larger than the basic shipping fee. In addition, we also find that although moderate recommendation service strength will enhance the consumer’s willingness to pay for add-on items, the platform still does not have the necessary incentive to introduce recommendation services. By considering the endogenous add-on item recommendation service to extend the proposed model, we further find that the e-commerce platform has the incentive to provide an add-on item recommendation service only when the CFS threshold is sufficiently high.

Facets of business-to-business brand equity: mixed-methods approach

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight various aspects of business-to-business brand equity (B2BBE) and explain relative impact of marketing/advertising, research and development (R&D), human resource and distribution network to build compelling business brands that display better firm performance.Design/methodology/approachA total of 51 in-depth semi-structured interviews with distributors and industrial buyers revealed different facets of B2BBE. Generalized method of moments (GMM) was applied on a large-scale panel data set of industrial firms to estimate the effects of firms’ R&D, advertising/marketing, distribution and staff training (proxy to sources of B2BBE) on sales.FindingsFirst, varying levels of product application criticality and end-customer brand stature reflect four distinct organizational purchase requirements, namely, assured performance, prestige, brand leaders and commodity. Second, a taxonomy of five sources of B2BBE (prominence, solutions, accessibility, relationships and network strength) manifests buyers’ interactive experience during the purchase cycle. Third, it illustrates the positive short-term effect of all explanatory variables coupled with the positive long-term impact of R&D on sales.Practical implicationsFeatures like B2C brand image, clear and precise product information, credit/flexible payment terms, distributor image, add-on services to the core product and upstream–downstream referrals characterize strong brands. GMM model results help managers, in budget allocation.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper lies in proposing a comprehensive B2BBE framework based on triangulation; deployment of a common structure to simultaneously investigate distributors and industrial buyers, to discover whether their philosophies reinforce/undermine industrial branding strategies; and suggesting the use of GMM model to arrive at actionable insights.

Effect of Wiring and Cabling Topologies on the Performance of Distributed MIMO OFDM VLC Systems

Since most indoor spaces have multiple luminaires for illumination, for visible light communication (VLC) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication emerges as a natural solution to improve the data rates and/or the link reliability. The existing works on MIMO VLC systems, however, overlook the characteristics of the lighting infrastructure and the luminaire design, which might have implications for the VLC system design. A luminaire typically consists of multiple LED chips. The wiring topology refers to how the LED chips are connected within the luminaire. The cabling topology, on the other hand, refers to how the luminaires are connected to the communication access point (AP). Based on the type and length of cabling and wiring, significant delays can be introduced, which should be taken into account in channel modeling. In this paper, we adopt the non-sequential ray tracing to model the distributed MIMO VLC channels for various practical wiring and cabling topologies. Based on the developed channel models, we provide a comparative performance analysis of repetition coding (RC), spatial multiplexing (SMUX), and spatial modulation (SMOD) MIMO modes. Our results quantify the effect of wiring/cabling delays and provide insights into the optimized design of lighting infrastructure and luminaires for the support of VLC as an add-on service.

Assessing Travel Websites Based on Service Quality Attributes Under Intuitionistic Environment

Digitalization has increased the importance of online marketing as compared to its traditional counterpart. Over the years, the number of customers using online portals for booking tickets and hotel rooms via online travel agencies (OTAs) has shown an increasing trend. This may be due to the discounts and add-on services provided by OTA retailers. Quality of the website attracts customers to make a visit and henceforth a purchase. Since the satisfaction of online customers impacts the success of a website, a model is proposed to rank OTA websites on the basis of factors that affect website quality. The website quality criteria considered are trust, ease of use, tangibility, ease of booking, navigation, customization, system availability, responsiveness, and interactivity of ewom (electronic word-of-mouth) systems. The model combines the multi criteria group decision making (MCGDM) techniques of intuitionistic fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (IFAHP) and intuitionistic fuzzy preference ranking order method for evaluation enrichment (IFPROMETHEE). A case study is provided to validate the model. The results of the case study show the higher ranking given to the OTA website with most efficient service quality attributes.

Digital enablement and its role in internal branding: A case study of HUANYI travel agency

Digitalization has generated new challenges and opportunities for brand communication and relationship marketing. As more and more B2B brands are utilizing digital technology for brand communication with multiple stakeholders, it is worth further investigation how digitalization can empower employees to reach better branding-supportive outcomes at various stages of the internal branding process. Through a case study, we propose a process model framework in which digital technologies promote employees to become Institutional Adaptor, Brand Performer, and Brand Champions. Specifically, our case findings reveal that depending on the degree to which digitalization can be viewed as an add-on service or an ingrained element in the value chains aligned with strategic goals, digital technologies can be associated with different enablement mechanisms relating to operational optimality, better sensing and responding capability, and ultimately ambidexterity. As existing literature largely examines the technological dimension of digital enablement technologies, this study emphases the importance of technology-strategy alignment in B2B internal branding context.

Point-to-Multipoint Communication Enablers for the Fifth Generation of Wireless Systems

3GPP has enhanced the point-to-multipoint (PTM) communication capabilities of 4G LTE in all releases since the adoption of eMBMS in Release-9. Recent enhancements cover not only television services, but also critical machine-type and vehicular communications, following the backward-compatibility design philosophy of LTE. This article discusses the opportunity in the design and standardization of 5G to break with the existing paradigm for PTM transmissions in 4G LTE, where broadcast PTM transmissions were initially conceived as an add-on and pre-positioned service. 5G brings the opportunity to incorporate PTM capabilities as built-in delivery features from the outset, integrating point-to-point and PTM modes under one common framework and enabling dynamic use of PTM to maximize network and spectrum efficiency. This approach will open the door to completely new levels of network management and delivery cost efficiency. The article also discusses the implications of PTM for network slicing to customize and optimize network resources on a common 5G infrastructure to accommodate different use cases and services taking into account user density.

An innovative approach to address homelessness in regional Australia: Participant evaluation of a co-payment model

ObjectivesHomelessness is not only about lack of secure housing, it is sometimes caused by simple reasons such as lack of money to travel home. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the participant co-funded assistance program (‘Return to Country’ [R2C]), when offered to low socio-economic individuals experiencing homelessness, represented an effective use of scarce resources. Study designIn northern Australia, a remote and sparsely populated area, Indigenous persons who travel to regional centres cannot always afford airfares home; they therefore become stranded away from their ‘country’ leading to rapidly deteriorating health, isolation and separation from family and kin. The R2C program was designed to facilitate travel for persons who were temporarily stranded and were voluntarily seeking to return home. The program provided operational support and funding (participants co-funded AU$99) to participants to return home. MethodsUsing a descriptive, case series research design, university researchers independently evaluated the R2C program using semi-structured interviews with 37 participants. ResultsAn investment of AU$970 per participant in the program with partial co-payment was associated with high participant acceptability and satisfaction in-line with harms reduction around substance and criminal abuse, which is suggestive of long-term success for the model. ConclusionsFindings from this study can contribute to the development of best practice guidelines and policies that specifically address the needs of this unique population of stranded persons, who are seeking to return home. The acceptance of the co-payment model can be adopted by policy makers involved in homelessness prevention in other locations in Australia or internationally as an add-on service provision to mainstream housing support.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Design and implement a cross layer verification framework (CLVF) for detecting and preventing blackhole and wormhole attack in wireless ad-hoc networks for cloud environment

Various malicious activities are still making lot of problems in all kind of networks. Some of the malicious activities can be controlled and some can’t be, whereas controlling the malicious activities affects the network traffic or data should be detected and eliminated mainly. Malicious activities created in network layers affect the data and network traffic. In this paper controlling the blackhole and wormhole attacks is taken as the problem statement. To solve the problem this paper proposed a new framework for detecting and eliminating blackhole and wormhole attacks in wireless ad-hoc networks. To do that a cross layer verification framework is proposed and simulated in NS2 software to verify the efficiency. In order to evaluate the performance the obtained performance parameters are compared with existing approaches. The proposed framework can be provided as a add-on service support for cloud environment.

Survey of Cellular Mobile Radio Localization Methods: From 1G to 5G

Cellular systems evolved from a dedicated mobile communication system to an almost omnipresent system with unlimited coverage anywhere and anytime for any device. The growing ubiquity of the network stirred expectations to determine the location of the mobile devices themselves. Since the beginning of standardization, each cellular mobile radio generation has been designed for communication services, and satellite navigation systems, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), have provided precise localization as an add-on service to the mobile terminal. Self-contained localization services relying on the mobile network elements have offered only rough position estimates. Moreover, satellite-based technologies suffer a severe degradation of their localization performance in indoors and urban areas. Therefore, only in subsequent cellular standard releases, more accurate cellular-based location methods have been considered to accommodate more challenging localization services. This survey provides an overview of the evolution of the various localization methods that were standardized from the first to the fourth generation of cellular mobile radio, and looks over what can be expected with the new radio and network aspects for the upcoming generation of fifth generation.

Pithy Review on Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks and Least Routing Time Opportunistic Technique in WSN

Nowadays due to most of the telecommunication standard development organizations focusing on using device-to-device communication so that they can provide proximity-based services and add-on services on top of the available cellular infrastructure. An Oppnets and wireless sensor network play a prominent role here. Routing in these networks plays a significant role in fields such as traffic management, packet delivery etc. Routing is a prodigious research area with diverse unresolved issues. This paper firstly focuses on the importance of Opportunistic routing and its concept then focus is shifted to prime aspect i.e. on packet reception ratio which is one of the highest QoS Awareness parameters. This paper discusses the two important functions of routing in wireless sensor networks (WSN) namely route selection using least routing time algorithm (LRTA) and data forwarding using clustering technique. Finally, the simulation result reveals that LRTA performs relatively better than the existing system in terms of average packet reception ratio and connectivity.

IBC - ION BEAM CENTER

In the Ion Beam Center (IBC), various set-ups – electrostatic accelerators, ion implanters, plasma-based ion implantation equipment, low-energy ion tools, an ion microscope etc. – are combined into a unique facility for research and applications using ion beams. Almost all ions from stable chemical nuclides are available in the ion energy range from 10 eV to about 60 MeV. In addition to broad beams, also focused (down to 1 nm) and highly-charged (charge state up to 45+) ion beams, or ions extracted from a plasma can be provided. In total, the IBC operates more than 30 dedicated tools or beamline end-stations. The specific expertise of IBC is the modification and analysis of solids by energetic ions aimed to develop novel materials for information technology, electronics or energy systems. In addition, ion beam analysis techniques became of increasing importance for interdisciplinary fields like geochemistry, climate or environmental research and resources technology. Special add-on services offered ensure a successful realization of user experiments. Based on a long-term expertise, specific equipment and common commercial procedures, the IBC is strongly active in the use of ion beam techniques for industrial applications aimed to initiate valuable product innovation.