Basic Service Level Research Articles

Selecting a transport and forwarding company for meeting a customer’s needs when organizing international road cargo transportation

The object of this study is the process of planning the work of a manufacturing enterprise that needs transport and forwarding services when exporting goods to counterparties in different countries of the world. The problem being solved is predetermined by the need to devise recommendations for choosing a transport and forwarding company when serving an individual customer, based on its individual needs and conditions of cooperation. A simulation model for the selection of a transport and forwarding company was constructed and implemented to meet the customer’s needs when exporting goods, applying the GPSS World simulation automation package. The model provides for the optimization of the choice of a transport and forwarding company for servicing counterparties based on the assessment of their activity indicators over previous periods of cooperation. When building the model, the types of commercial conditions of the exporter’s cooperation with the transport and forwarding company, indicators of the quality assessment of the basic level of service and the duration of service at all stages of the foreign trade operation were taken into account. The application of the constructed model in practice will enable exporters and importers to choose a transport and forwarding company depending on the individual needs of customers in the delivery of goods. The simulation results reflect the performance indicators of the provision of transport and forwarding services by various specialized enterprises. This will make it possible to involve in the transport and forwarding service of a separate counterparty an organization that will meet all the requirements of goods buyer in accordance with the terms of the international economic contract. At the same time, the duration of choosing and agreeing the terms of cooperation could be reduced by 12–15 % while the efficiency of transport and forwarding services would increase by 13–16 %

Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools: global overview on the WASH programme

Abstract Context Safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene are crucial to human health and well-being. Safe WASH is not only a prerequisite to health, but contributes to livelihoods, school attendance and dignity and helps to create resilient communities living in healthy environments. WHO and UNICEF, through the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), produce internationally comparable estimates of progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and are responsible for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to WASH. Since the establishment of the SDGs, the JMP has published global baseline reports on WASH in households (2017), WASH in schools (2018) and WASH in health care facilities (2019), and a progress update on households (2019). Objectives To put the European findings in a global perspective regarding school toilets. Results Findings from the last report published under this JMP (2021) will be presented, updating national, regional and global estimates for WASH in schools up to the year 2019, with a special focus on the implications for ensuring the safety of students and school staff during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Using service ladders to benchmark and compare progress across countries on WASH in schools by tracking progress towards a basic level of service, as the indicator used for global monitoring of SDG targets related to WASH in schools, we will see that situations are contrasted. Globally 63% of schools had a basic sanitation service in 2019, while it is the case of 99% of schools in Europe and Northern America. The differences are of the same level regarding basic drinking water service in schools (respectively 69% vs. 99%), as well as for basic hygiene (resp. 57% vs. 98%). Conclusions Those results illustrate the paradox that existence of a given facility, access and use are not equivalent and need to be explored further.

A Review of User Vulnerabilities Associated with Shared Sanitation Practices in Sub-Saharan Africa

Aims: Shared sanitation was excluded from the basic service level due to perceived limitations of their hygiene, accessibility and safety. But how does the current body of scientific knowledge influence the narrative? This paper is aimed at reviewing data on the current status and vulnerability issues reported to be associated with shared sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
 Methodology: Literature was searched using key search terms from nine databases. Peer-reviewed articles and various reports of individual country studies published in English from January 2000 to April 2022 were selected.
 Results: As at 2020, the proportion of the population sharing sanitation facilities in SSA was estimated as 19% compared to 7% globally. The review revealed a mixed opinion about issues and vulnerabilities associated with shared sanitation which may have arisen from inconsistencies in the typologies and levels of sharing of facilities among the reviewed studies. Using shared sanitation was found to be associated with an increased risk of diarrheal diseases (OR=1.06; 95%CI: 1.03-1.08) and non-partner violence against women (OR=1.52; 95%CI: 1.22-1.82). However, there is also evidence that many shared facilities, particularly those shared by a few (2-3) households, are clean, meet the needs of the users and afford them similar health outcomes as non-shared facilities.
 Conclusion: The findings of the review suggest that the outright exclusion of all forms of shared sanitation from basic sanitation potentially underestimates the global efforts and progress toward access to sanitation. There is a need to segregate communal and public toilets from privately shared facilities in future research as well as the progress reporting by the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP). It is also recommended that steps are taken by the JMP to develop indicators for identifying and incorporating quality shared sanitation facilities into the basic sanitation service level in order to give a more realistic account of the global effort towards sanitation access.

Spillover Effects and Freemium Strategy in the Mobile App Market

“Freemium,” whereby a basic service level is provided free of charge but consumers are charged for more advanced features, has become a popular business model for firms selling digital goods. However, it is not clear whether the launch of a free version helps or hurts the demand of an existing paid version. The free version may allow consumers to sample the product before making a purchase decision and subsequently increase demand of the paid version, but it may also cannibalize demand of the paid version. We use a comprehensive data set on game apps from Apple’s App Store that tracks the launch of both the paid and the free versions of individual apps on a daily level to identify whether a freemium strategy stimulates or hurts demand of an existing paid version. We estimate the spillover effects between the free version and the paid version of the same app under a difference-in-difference framework, relying on the fact that app developers cannot predict the exact launch date of the free version of the app due to Apple’s review and approval of apps prior to release and accounting for app-level product heterogeneity. We find that the launch of a free version increases demand of the paid version of the same app. Under the main specification, if the daily number of ratings before the free version’s launch is at the mean, then all else equal, the launch of the free version leads to an 8.9% increase in the daily number of ratings. We then describe multiple robustness checks. Finally, we present evidence that the results are driven by consumers sampling the free version as well as enhanced app discovery and explore the relative importance of the two mechanisms. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4619 .

Kajian Kualitas Dan Tingkat Pelayanan Jalur Pejalan Kaki (Studi Kasus: Sepanjang Jalan Jend. Ahmad Yani Kota Bekasi)

This study aims to determine the quality and service level of pedestrian paths. This research is based on the problems that exist in the pedestrian path along Jalan Jend. Ahmad Yani Kota Bekasi which is an urban center. The problems that occur at the location of this study are the damage to the pedestrian path and the occurrence of a change in the function of the pedestrian path which is mostly used by motorized vehicle parking which is an obstacle to the pedestrian path. This study uses the calculation of the Pedestrian Environmental Quality Index (PEQI) and the Pedestrian Level of Service (High Capacity Manual). The method used in this research is by using quantitative methods and the analysis carried out is descriptive analysis. Based on the results of the analysis carried out, the value of the quality of the pedestrian crossing is in the acceptable category (Class II) where the facilities and infrastructure for the intersection are sufficient for road users, while for the quality of the pedestrian lane itself it is in a bad category (Class IV) due to the condition of the path that is perforated as well as the obstacles or obstacles that occur on the pedestrian path itself. The results of the service level analysis are based on the flow and based on the entry space at the service level c (basic service level).

A social resilience measurement tool for Tanzania’s water supply systems

Societies always need access to safe water for their health and wellbeing. While reports show tremendous achievements, more people – globally – still lack even the basic service level especially in developing countries like Tanzania. The existing water supply systems (WSSs) are vulnerable to climate change impacts such as flooding, which are already affecting the livelihood and wellbeing of the people, prompting for more resilient societies. The current study assisted with a review of existing frameworks, proposes a social resilience measurement tool that was made relevant to Tanzania through pre-assessment, pre-testing, and a three-round Delphi process. The tool was further evaluated in Dar es salaam to show how it works. The final tool contains nine indicators organised in five mechanisms for measuring social resilience. The most significant indicators include community awareness, preventive health measures, mitigation plan, houses location, and community participation. The tool provides a basis for prioritising measures that are useful in planning and budgeting processes to improve the social resilience for the country's WSSs and in other developing countries.

Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in Relation to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia.

The main purpose of the study was to deepen the understanding of gender and social inclusion in the context of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. An explorative qualitative study was conducted in three districts of the Oromia region using gender analysis frameworks. Twenty-one key informant interviews and nine focus group discussions were conducted. Findings showed 52% of households in the study area have basic service level water, 29% have basic service level sanitation, and 14% have basic service level hygiene. Women, girls, and people living with disability disproportionately experience poor access to quality WASH services. Women and girls participate in unequal domestic labor related to water management which often exposes them to discrimination and violence such as rape, abduction, and assault. Overall, women, girls, and other socially excluded groups are rarely consulted and engaged by local actors. This results in incongruent policy and political commitment which limits action at the grassroots level. Integrating gender equality and inclusion efforts into local governance agendas can help to increase access to and the quality of WASH services. These efforts must advocate for moving beyond gender parity to promote gender transformative approaches and inclusion to realize better WASH services for the communities they serve.

Edukasi Optimalisasi Tumbuh Kembang Balita dalam Upaya Pencegahan Stunting

AbstractToddler health efforts are activities / work programs in the health sector that concern health services and maintenance for toddlers, namely children aged 12 months to 59 months with the aim of preparing a healthy, intelligent and quality generation while aiming to reduce infant mortality. Based on Lancet data (2012), 44.7% of infant deaths were caused by low birth weight (LBW), failure to breastfeed, Stunting (short), underweight, and lack of vit A and Zink minerals. The MSG program is an effort to prevent the occurrence of stunting by combining several health education methods in one package consisting of conventional health education, distributing leaflets and PMTS as well as training mothers to detect early toddlers at home. This effort is carried out at the basic service level, namely the puskesmas and its working area. The implementation method is divided into 3 stages: the preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages. Conclusion: all toddlers are in the category of good nutrition, Mothers of toddlers finally know the importance of measuring the growth and development of toddlers, toddlers mothers know the importance of preventing stunting in infancy

Perancangan Prototipe Perangkat Lunak Expert System Dengan Metode Backward Chaining Untuk Membantu Proses Pemeriksaan Antenatal Di Tingkat Pelayanan Dasar

Antenatal care at the Basic Service Level is defined antenatal checks will be undertaken to examine the circumstances of the mother and fetus at regular intervals, followed by an attempt correction of deviations found. The goal is to keep pregnant women can go through pregnancy, childbirth and post-partum properly and safely, and to produce a healthy baby.Procees Antenatal still done manually and is very dependent on the health workers so that the necessary software that can help this problem. The present study emphasizes the design of a prototype expert system software to assist in the level of antenatal examination of basic services.The purpose of this research is to make protitipe design software in order to help workers in antenatal care at the level of basic services.The method used in the design of a prototype expert system software that helps antenatal checks the method used in the design of a prototype expert system software to assist in the level of antenatal examination of basic services. The stages are done systematically in this study is a study phase began with a reference library to find supporters then gathered data, to identify and to determine the extent of the problem konseptualisiasi and experts involved, then formalize the knowledge base includes the manufacture of that relate to the topic, determining ie backward chaining inference method, followed by the drafting of a database, and then to design new prototype expert system software with backward chaining method that can assist antenatal examination in basic service level.
 Keywords: expert systems, antenatal, backward chaining

An assessment of child passenger safety levels of service in Michigan

Objective: The purpose of this article was to assess the match between child passenger safety resources (child passenger safety technicians [CPSTs], car seat checks, and child restraint system [CRS] distribution programs) and the child population in Michigan by utilizing geographic information systems approaches and to analyze the impact of Michigan’s CPSTs on child passenger safety behaviors on departure from a seat check.Methods: Data were collected from administrative sources and a survey of CPSTs to determine the number and location of child passenger safety resources and children in Michigan. The main analyses used data from 2014. The child population ≤4 years old per county and per traffic safety region was determined from census data. CPST and car seat check locations were determined from a list from the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning (Mi-OHSP) and a survey of CPSTs who coordinate seat checks. Summary sheets from Mi-OHSP served as the data source for CRSs distributed through their occupant protection program. Data from child passenger safety checklists completed with seat checks were obtained from Safe Kids Michigan. Addresses were geocoded using Google Maps Geocoding API and then mapped at the county level using ArcGIS Desktop 10.3.1. Descriptive statistics were calculated and levels of service were determined at the county and regional levels.Results: In 2014, there were 570,929 children ≤4 years old in Michigan and 979 CPSTs who worked at 209 known seat check locations. An average of 6,854 seats was checked per year through Safe Kids Michigan Coalitions. All but 3 regions met an intermediate service level for seat check locations by offering one or more per 5,000 children ≤4 years old. There was at least one CPST in 80 of 83 counties (median 5; interquartile range, 2, 10.5). Assuming that an average Michigan CPST provides 10 h of service each year, all but 2 regions reached an intermediate service level of at least one technician hour per 90 children ≤4 years old. Fewer regions reached a basic level of service for the number of seat checks. Almost half (49.5%) of Safe Kids Michigan seat checks resulted in a change in child passenger safety behaviors.Conclusions: Child passenger safety resources in Michigan are not evenly distributed yet most regions and counties meet intermediate levels of service. Reallocating resources to areas that are providing basic levels of service could help reduce disparities in child passenger safety behaviors.

The Readiness of Resources The Implementation of Maternal Health Services Indicators for the Minimum Services Standards in Depok West Java Indonesia

The Maternal health services indicators on the Minimun Services Standard (MSS) states that pregnant women should deliver in standard health service facilities. One of the efforts made for the acceleration of maternal and infant mortality rate is the optimization of handling of emergency neonatal obstetrics/complications of basic service level through Basic Emergency Obstetric Neonatal Care (BEONC). BEONC is one of the health service facilities that provides maternal health services according to MSS. Therefore the reinforcement of BEONC of both service management and support resources must be continuously optimized. This study aims to determine the resources needed to the implementation of MSS maternal health services indicators. Qualitative research was carried out at seven BEONC in Depok City from December 2017 to January 2018. The informants were 38 policy makers at the Health Service level, the head of BEONC, coordinator of BEONC and health officers. To obtain valid results, researchers conducted data triangulation with indept interview and focus group discussion techniques and document review related to the implementation at BEONC. The results showed that human resources had not been prepared with sufficient quantity or quality, standard operational procedures, adequate facilities and operational budget. The Conclusion is that the resources were not optimal. Not all the health officers were involved in BEONC, quality control team and the stakeholders not support the implementation.

Editorial: Why it’s not enough for local governments and NGOs to simply serve more people

Many people lack even basic services. Implementation of water and sanitation programmes, especially in rural areas, is mainly undertaken by (local) governments and NGOs – often supported directly or indirectly by international donors and NGOs. These implementing agencies and their partners are driven by their awareness of the numbers of people who are still not able to access even a basic level of service – around 844 million in the case of water, and 2.3 billion in the case of sanitation (data from JMP update 2017).

Spillover Effects and Freemium Strategy in Mobile App Market

“Freemium” whereby a basic service level is provided free of charge but consumers are charged for more advanced features has become a popular business model for firms selling digital goods. However, it is not clear whether the launch of a free version helps or hurts the demand of an existing paid version. The free version may allow consumers to sample the product before making a purchase decision and subsequently increase demand of the paid version but it may also cannibalize demand of the paid version. We use a comprehensive data set on game apps from Apple's App Store that tracks the launch of both the paid and the free versions of individual apps on a daily level, to identify whether a freemium strategy stimulates or hurts demand of an existing paid version. We estimate the spillover effects between the free version and the paid version of the same app accounting for app-level product heterogeneity. We find that the launch of a free version increases demand of the paid version of the same app and present multiple robustness checks for these results. We then present evidence that the results are driven by consumers sampling the free version as well as enhanced app discovery.

Novel digital forensic readiness technique in the cloud environment

This paper examines the design and implementation of a feasible technique for performing Digital Forensic Readiness (DFR) in cloud computing environments. The approach employs a modified obfuscated Non-Malicious Botnet (NMB) whose functionality operates as a distributed forensic Agent-Based Solution (ABS) in a cloud environment with capabilities of performing forensic logging for DFR purposes. Under basic Service Level Agreements (SLAs), this proactive technique allows any organization to perform DFR in the cloud without interfering with operations and functionalities of the existing cloud architecture or infrastructure and the collected file metadata. Based on the evaluation discussed, the effectiveness of our approach is presented as the easiest way of conducting DFR in the cloud environment as stipulated in the ISO/IEC 27043: 2015 international standard, which is a standard of information technology, security techniques and incident investigation principles and processes. Through this technique, digital forensic analysts are able to maximize the potential use of digital evidence while minimizing the cost of conducting DFR. As a result of this process, the time and cost needed to conduct a Digital Forensic Investigation (DFI) is saved. As a consequence, the technique helps the law enforcement, forensic analysts and Digital Forensic Investigators (DFIs) during post-event response and in a court of law to develop a hypothesis in order to prove or disprove a fact during an investigative process, if there is an occurrence of a security incident. Experimental results of the developed prototype are described which conclude that the technique is effective in improving the planning and preparation of pre-incident detection during digital crime investigations. In spite of that, a comparison with other existing forensic readiness models has been conducted to show the effectiveness of the previously proposed Cloud Forensic Readiness as a Service (CFRaaS) model.

Diversity and Dynamics of Informal Rental Housing in a Mid-sized City in India

Informal housing predominates urban housing options in developing countries, including India, in both its metro and its mid-sized cities. Within urban housing, two-fifths is rental in India. This study is located within one mid-sized city (Guwahati) in one of the least developed states (Assam) in India. The processes of supply of rental housing in the informal sector are linked with the processes of overall supply of housing identified in Guwahati as housing through (i) informal occupation of public and private lands, (ii) alienation of land and (iii) public sector. Within that, landownership, processes of land occupation/subdivision and development, and the role of various actors create submarkets. Submarket-specific, settlement-specific and owner-specific processes shape a diversity of informal rental housing with regard to extent, quality, level of basic services, rents and tenure security for the urban poor, posing challenges for pursuing a policy of ‘formalizing the informal’ in the case of India. 非正式住房在发展中国家的城市中成为了主要的住房选择，包括印度的大城市和中等城市。在印度的城市住房中，五分之二是租赁住房。本研究针对一个位于印度最不发达邦 (Assam) 的中型城市 (Guwahati)。非正式租赁住房的供应过程通过以下因素与 Guwahati 市明确的完整住房供应过程联系在一起：(i) 非正式的公共和私人土地权属，(ii) 土地转让，以及 (iii) 公共部门。其中，土地所有权、土地占有/细分过程的发展，以及各个参与者的角色共同创建了子市场。针对印度的情况，在基础服务的程度、质量、水平，城市贫民的租金和权属保障，面临挑战寻求一个政策”以正式的手段解决非正式住房问题”等方面，特定的子市场、特定的解决方案和特定的所有者形成了非正式租赁住房的多样性。

Local municipality productive efficiency and its determinants in South Africa

This paper assesses the technical efficiency of 231 local municipalities in South Africa for 2007 and investigates the potential determinants of efficiency gaps using the non-parametric data envelopment analysis technique. Efficiency scores are explained in a second-stage regression model using a Tobit regression model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt, using such a technique, to assess technical efficiency at the local government level in the African context. The results show that, on average, B1 and B3 municipalities could have theoretically achieved the same level of basic services with about 16% and 80% fewer resources respectively. Furthermore, fiscal autonomy and the number and skill levels of the top management of a municipality's administration were found to influence the productive efficiency of municipalities in South Africa. Perhaps most importantly, the results depict a bleak picture of the democratic behaviour at the local level in South Africa. It appears that higher income and highly educated households do not feel the incentive to be active participants in public decision-making processes. The paper findings raise concerns over the future of local municipalities in the country, especially about their capability to efficiently deliver expected outcomes on a sustainable basis.

Analysis for Different Level of Service in Rural Water Supply: A case Study of Mothala Village, Kutch District, Gujarat

As per the norms of funding, in the rural water supply (RWS) programs of developing countries the choice of Level of Service (LOS) is incorporated at the stage of planning itself by the Consumers. However, in most of the cases the Consumers accept these programs with just the basic LOS in order to minimize their share of contribution. Hence, such schemes can effectively be termed as the scheme planned and designed with the philosophy of supply driven approach (SDA). In such situation it can be mention that the “some for all, rather than more for some” policy leads to “minimum unsatisfactory virtually free service to all”. Thus planners should rather strive for basic service to all and higher LOS to those who are willing to pay for more. Cost of RWS for different LOS for Village, starting from basic service to higher service level.

Efficiency measurement of basic service delivery at South African district and local municipalities

South Africa has experienced immense changes in the post- apartheid era and coordinated local public policy has sought to expand and improve the level of basic services provided to previously disadvantaged people. Local government has played a pivotal role in this process and has been subjected to intense reform in an effort to enhance its effective- ness and broaden its range of activities. While a number of scholars have examined the administrative, political and social dimensions of the local government reform program, little attention has focused on the economic efficiency of service delivery. This paper seeks to remedy this neglect by evaluating the productive efficiency with which municipal councils have delivered electricity, domestic waste removal, sanitation and water in line with their new responsibilities using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques applied to cross-sectional data covering the period 2006/2007 for 231 local municipalities and 46 district municipalities.

Meeting Challenges of Rural Road Management Caused by Decreasing Population and Changes in Industrial Structure

The most pronounced characteristics of rural development in Finland in the 1990s include the concentration of population in cities as well as changes in the industrial and production structure. Outlying areas of eastern, northern, and central Finland have experienced the most significant absolute and relative decreases in population in recent years. A 73% share of state-owned public roads and private roads (the lowvolume road network) is located in the areas of decreasing population. Traffic volumes will decline on low-volume roads as rural population decreases and will significantly affect the economy of low-volume road management in the future. In the areas of decreasing population, the greatest problem is to maintain the low-volume road network in adequate condition with reasonable costs to serve permanent residents and the transport needs of agriculture and forestry. The most important measures for meeting the challenges of decreasing population include the allocation of sufficient funding for the management of low-volume roads, which will provide for the basic level of service to meet the necessary needs of citizens and enterprises. Furthermore, a system of “just-for-need road management” should be adopted more widely in the management of low-volume roads. Through this system, the scarce financial resources of public low-volume road management would be allocated as efficiently as possible to meet demand by time and location. It should be noted, however, that savings through just-for-need road management are not necessarily significant, and in some cases costs may even increase. For this reason, each low-volume road segment should be examined separately.

521 The Effects of Privatization of British and Scottish Public Extension Programs on Agricultural Information Delivery and Technology Transfer

The British and Scotish public extension programs are currently “privatized,” after a decade-long process aimed at this objective. While the British system is owned by a private corporation, the Scotish one is still operated by a public entity. In both situations, information is not freely dispensed, but sold through a subscription process. For a fee, a basic level of service, including newsletters, production/marketing/farm management bulletins, and a limited amount of telephone time with disciplinary/commodity experts, is provided. For an additional fee, farm visits or problem diagnostic services can be secured. The government is one of the largest customers in both systems, funding major “public good” natural resource projects, rural reviatization projects, and agricultural sector job re-training programs. This has significantly impacted the way that information is obtained and delivered to primary producers. These issues, and their implications, will be discussed in this presentation.