Core Services Research Articles

Building Citizen Satisfaction Towards E-Government Services: A Conceptual Framework

In the context of government services, user satisfaction becomes the determinant of its success. This study aims to develop and examine a model for determining citizen satisfaction with e-government services using the technology acceptance model (TAM) and trust theory. Specifically, we look at the role of perceived e-service which consists of core services, facilitating services, and supporting services in influencing perceived usefulness and trust in e-government. We also see how trust in e-government affects perceived usefulness and citizen satisfaction. Finally, we examine perceived usefulness regarding its influence on citizen satisfaction. This study is carried out on citizens who are obliged to pay and report taxes (taxpayers) through the online platform of Directorate General of Taxes (DJP Online) in South Sumatera Province, Indonesia, as many as 240 respondents. The data is collected online by distributing questionnaires through Google Forms. The data obtained is then analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS). The findings of this study indicate that perceived e-service which consists of core services, facilitating services, and supporting services has a positive influence on perceived usefulness and trust in e-government, while trust in e-government affects perceived usefulness and citizen satisfaction. Finally, this study confirms that citizen satisfaction is influenced by perceived usefulness.

Space-time Models and Personal Accessibility to Educational Facilities. Case Study of Space-time Accessibility to Schools in the City of Valencia

Society nowadays makes intensive use of time and extensive use of space. This has implications for spatial planning of facilities and services since it is now essential to look at personal accessibility (in terms of time and choice) and not just physical distance. Over and above spatial accessibility (distance or cost of travel to the facility or service), location models based on space-time accessibility also consider personal accessibility with respect to the time available to access a facility or service. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the practical usefulness of the theoretical approach grounded in the Geography of Time in enhancing personal accessibility to facilities and services which are provided in a specific space and at a specific time and have fixed start and end times, as is the case with schools. To this end, an ad hoc tool was developed to generate a number of scenarios simulating actual and hypothetical conditions for space-time accessibility to schools in the city of Valencia. The results showed how studying space-time accessibility may be extremely useful in drawing up proposals designed to increase personal accessibility to core services such as education and thereby helping to improve work-life balance.

Housing vulnerability, agricultural production, and goods lost estimated to floods in Rio Nuevo a rural community in Colombia

Floods affect households, crops, and assets, especially in rural areas in Colombia; due to the lack of risk management plans, settlements without core services and land use planning, atypical natural phenomena, and climate change. The floods recorded since 1964, in the rural community of Rio Nuevo in the department of Córdoba, but there is a lack of estimates of the economic losses and housing vulnerability. The research aim was to determine the degree of physical vulnerability and estimated economic losses in crops and goods due to flooding in the local community of Río Nuevo, Valencia Town. The methodological guide for the elaboration of departmental plans for risk management (known in Spanish as PDGR),  and the methodology for the economic valuation of potential direct tangible damages, was selected the variables (age, construction, regulations, soil, walls, floors, goods, and crops), questions, surveys to population, available data, proceed to process the information, elaborate maps and analyze. The results reveal physical vulnerability high in Rio Nuevo, with a value of 0.63 on a scale of 0 to 1. The rural community houses built located at a distance of fewer than 30 meters, mainly with wood, the soil of alluvial deposits, faced floods, humidity damages, hardening resistance, and non-quality life. The economic losses estimated between goods and crops were US$174200.22. A poverty condition, poor infrastructure, and unfavorable places, hamper improve the quality of the people. Colombian government need to excecute a proper infrastructure investment to reduce persistence vulnerability and relocated this riverside area, according to its culture and traditions, and protect the economy around crops

IL-17 Receptor A protects against Helicobacter pylori-induced gastric cancer

Abstract Infection with Helicobacter pylori is the predominant risk factor for the development of gastric cancer. Risk is enhanced by specific H. pylori virulence factors, diet, and the inflammatory response. Chronic activation of T helper (Th) 1 and Th17 pathways contribute to inflammation. Previous work suggests that while IL-17 activates several antimicrobial components of the innate immune response, IL-17 is also required to prevent a hyper-inflammatory adaptive immune response. To investigate if IL-17 receptor signaling contributes to the development of carcinogenesis, the transgenic InsGAS mouse, which is susceptible to H. pylori-induced gastric cancer, was used. InsGAS mice and InsGAS Il17ra −/−mice were infected with a cag T4SS positive strain for up to 6 months. By 6 weeks post infection, IL-17RA deficiency led to increased bacterial burden and increased gastritis, concomitant with an exacerbated Th1/Th17 cytokine profile, increased B cell infiltration and enhanced production of IgA despite reduced Pigr expression. Paragastric lymph nodes of InsGAS Il17ra −/−mice, while enlarged relative to InsGAS mice, exhibited altered gene expression profiles and potential loss of fibroblastic reticular cells. Gastric pathologies, including intramucosal carcinoma and adenocarcinoma with submucosal invasion, developed more frequently by 3 and 6 months post infection in H. pylori-infected InsGASIl17ra −/−mice. These increases in severe gastric disease were accompanied by loss of parietal cells, loss of mucin-producing cells and enhanced expression of ceacam1. These data suggest that IL-17RA signaling activates a protective pathway to prevent excessive inflammation which can drive gastric carcinogenesis after H. pylori infection. This work was supported in part by Merit Review I01BX000915 (Algood) from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Service. We acknowledge the Translational Pathology Shared Resource supported by NCI.NIH Cancer Center Support Grant 5P30 CA68485-19. Core Services performed through Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Digestive Disease Research Center supported by NIH grant P30DK058404.

Local perspectives on policy implementation of free maternity health services in Kenya: Implications for universal health coverage.

Kenya introduced free maternity services (FMS) in 2013 to enable all pregnant women to give birth for free in all government public health facilities. Currently, Kenya is rolling out universal health coverage (UHC), which has been acknowledged as a priority goal for every health system and part of the 'Big Four Agenda' for sustainable national development in Kenya. FMS is one of the core services in Kenya, but since its launch, it is not clear whether the decentralized approach chosen to implement FMS is leading to UHC. This nine-month ethnographic study in Kilifi County, Kenya, was conducted between March-July 2016 and February-July 2017. A narrative approach to analysis was applied. In this article, we interrogate local perceptions of participation during the crafting and implementation of FMS. Findings show that FMS was detached from local realities, and this was a major inadequacy of the top to bottom approach. FMS did not consider local power relations and bargaining power which are requisites during policy formulation and implementation. The participants expressed desire for more localized control over resources from the national government. The findings suggest that as UHC is rolled out in Kenya, consultation of local stakeholders at the grassroots by the state departments would likely improve maternal healthcare outcomes. Such consultations must take into consideration differences in bargaining power and local power relations. Borrowing from the basic tenets of the recent anthropological theorization of constitutionality, this article proposes a bottom to top approach that leverages and integrates local views during policy-making process to create trust, a sense of ownership and accountability.

Empowering End-of-Life Vehicle Decision Making with Cross-Company Data Exchange and Data Sovereignty via Catena-X

The mobility sector is the world’s second-largest producer of energy-related CO2 emissions, and it is facing a global resource shortage. The demand for circular products, the use of secondary materials in future vehicles, and the need for sustainable business models in the mobility sector is increasing. However, a transparent and end-to-end data exchange throughout the entire value network is missing, which is hindering an efficient circular economy. Relevant information on the vehicle, its components, and materials at the end of the product life cycle are often missing. In this context, this paper presents a decision support system based on Digital Twin data for a circular economy solution as a software application. It was developed within the German research project Catena-X following an integrated approach of user-centered design, the V-model, and within the Scaled Agile Framework. By combining these methodological approaches, customer-oriented solutions were developed and continuously improved at each stage of development to shorten the time-to-market. Catena-X is based on Gaia-X principles. In Gaia-X, necessary core services are developed, and contraction negotiation for data exchange and usage policies is enabled and implemented. The decision support system provides important information about the exact composition and condition of the vehicle, its components, and its materials. Thus, it helps to improve efficiency, sustainability, and the implementation of the circular economy. The decision support system was tested and validated with a use case that provided Digital Twin data on the end-of-life vehicle.

Challenges and Opportunities of Security-Aware EDA

The foundation of every digital system is based on hardware in which security, as a core service of many applications, should be deeply embedded. Unfortunately, the knowledge of system security and efficient hardware design is spread over different communities and, due to the complex and ever-evolving nature of hardware-based system security, state-of-the-art security is not always implemented in state-of-the-art hardware. However, automated security-aware hardware design seems to be a promising solution to bridge the gap between the different communities. In this work, we systematize state-of-the-art research with respect to security-aware Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and identify a modern security-aware EDA framework. As part of this work, we consider threats in the form of information flow, timing and power side channels, and fault injection, which are the fundamental building blocks of more complex hardware-based attacks. Based on the existing research, we provide important observations and research questions to guide future research in support of modern, holistic, and security-aware hardware design infrastructures.

A vision for change leadership: Trust, transparency and accountability at University of Wollongong Library

At the University of Wollongong (UOW) Library, we created a vision for digital transformation through the Future-Ready Library Strategy (University of Wollongong Library, 2018). This was a conscious commitment to becoming a ‘digital-first’ library and with a strategic and disruption-ready mindset already in place at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to apply and accelerate many of our planned initiatives. At the start of the crisis, the library leadership team adopted a business continuity approach to decision making, inclusive of representatives of critical service areas for regular and frequent discussion and action. This approach enabled the sustained delivery of core and critical resources and services while remaining aligned to the vision (University of Wollongong, n.d.). This case study examines the strategies and approaches taken at UOW Library over the past five years and outlines our successes and challenges through change leadership that we believe goes beyond change management and to the heart of our people centred approach to leading in the library.

Abstract 6582: A path to sustainability for the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Research Data Commons

Abstract Purpose: The volume of data produced by the biomedical research community continues to grow rapidly. Efficient collection, curation, and sharing of these data are expected to enable researchers to synthesize larger datasets and apply novel methods to discover new patterns for diagnosis, treatment, and care of disease. Consequently, data platforms that support these functionalities have become an important instrument for the biomedical research community. The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) is a data platform for the cancer research community that provides cloud-based, secure storage and analytic tools for cancer data, including genomics, proteomics, imaging, and clinical trial data. CRDC has been funded by multiple sources, including the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot program. Achieving long-term sustainability of the CRDC program is the focus of our study. Methods: We applied a Financial Operations (FinOps) framework to map all costs to functionalities provided by the CRDC, including processes such as data intake, storage, compute, user support, and project management. We established a comprehensive financial baseline for the operations of the CRDC, identified opportunities for optimization across multiple dimensions (people, processes, technology), projected future costs based on trends for cancer data, and evaluated sustainability under defined funding scenarios. Results: We identified 15 recommendations for optimization of the CRDC, including automation and centralization of core services (e.g., intake, curation, indexing), optimization of storage (e.g., compression, archiving), and harmonization of common services across the CRDC components (e.g., common architecture, governance). If implemented, we could demonstrate that these recommendations offer a path to long-term sustainability of the CRDC program under a variety of funding scenarios. Conclusion: Data platforms such as the CRDC will see rapid increases in operational costs due to the growing data volumes and demand from researchers. Optimizing governance and operational frameworks will result in efficiency gains that can ensure long-term sustainability. Taking these steps will be critical to provide the necessary infrastructure to advance the field of data-driven biomedical research. Citation Format: Juergen A. Klenk, Angela Maggio, Bhavani S. Singh, Erin N. Byrne, Erika Kim, Tanja M. Davidsen. A path to sustainability for the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Research Data Commons. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 6582.

135 Evaluating the Role of Service Centers in Overcoming TS Barriers: Protocol Development and Pilot Implementation

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Evaluation of the contributions of the CTSI core services to the science of translational science requires focused protocols that are rigorous developed and piloted. The goal of this presentation is to report on the process of protocol development and present the results of protocol pilot implementation. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Translational science’ (TS) is the field of investigation focused on understanding the scientific and operational principles underlying each step of the translational process (Austin, Clin Trans Sci. 2021; 14:1629-1647). A key tenet of translational science is to understand common causes of inefficiency and failure in translational research projects (e.g., incorrect predictions of the toxicity or efficacy of new drugs, lack of data interoperability, ineffective clinical trial recruitment). The navigation steps and mapping to resources for translational researchers provides an opportunity to develop effective navigation tools and study the barriers to effective translation. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The UF-FSU Evaluation Committee has developed and piloted an evaluation protocol that aims to assess the role of CTSI service centers in addressing specific TS barriers. The protocol is informed by interviews with CTSI service users, and is grounded in the Donabedian Framework of Quality Assessment and Lean principles. The pilot implementation of the protocol showed its relevance and applicability across multiple UF-FSU core service centers. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The barriers to translational science are not unique but addressing them is rarely within the scope of individual translational research projects. Conversely, service centers within the CTSA institutions are uniquely positioned to address TS barriers thus enhancing to the operational efficiency of the CTS enterprise and promoting the science of TS.

Heads in the Clouds? Measuring Universities’ Migration to Public Clouds: Implications for Privacy & Academic Freedom

With the emergence of remote education and work in universities due to COVID-19, the 'zoomification' of higher education, i.e., the migration of universities to the clouds, reached the public discourse. Ongoing discussions reason about how this shift will take control over students' data away from universities, and may ultimately harm the privacy of researchers and students alike. However, there has been no comprehensive measurement of universities' use of public clouds and reliance on Software-as-a-Service offerings to assess how far this migration has already progressed. We perform a longitudinal study of the migration to public clouds among universities in the U.S. and Europe, as well as institutions listed in the Times Higher Education (THE) Top100 between January 2015 and October 2022. We find that cloud adoption differs between countries, with one cluster (Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland) showing a limited move to clouds, while the other (U.S., U.K., the Netherlands, THE Top100) frequently outsources universities' core functions and services---starting long before the COVID-19 pandemic. We attribute this clustering to several socio-economic factors in the respective countries, including the general culture of higher education and the administrative paradigm taken towards running universities. We then analyze and interpret our results, finding that the implications reach beyond individuals' privacy towards questions of academic independence and integrity.

항공사 핵심서비스 품질이 지각된 가치, 브랜드 이미지 및 행동의도에 미치는 영향에 대한 연구

In short-haul routes of full service carriers and low-cost carriers, airline service quality has changed and simplified since COVID-19, such as not providing in-flight meals, strengthening non-face-to-face services, and maintaining a pleasant in-flight environment through strengthening quarantine activities. This study was conducted with interest in the relationship between the simplified and transformed airline core service quality and the perceived value, brand image and behavioral intention. As a result of the study, first, airline core service quality had a positive (+) effect on perceived value. In addition, it had a positive (+) effect on the brand image. Second, perceived value had a positive (+) effect on behavioral intention. It also had a positive (+) effect on the brand image. Third, brand image had a positive (+) effect on behavioral intention. Based on the results of the empirical analysis of the degree of perception(perceived value) of airline core service quality and its impact on brand image, it is expected that many implications will be derived if applied to airline core service strategy establishment and core service quality management measures.

Networks Enabling the Alliance’s Command and Control

The Alliance’s wide area networks enabling operational command and control (C2) are under continuous revision in order to facilitate the wide spectrum data exchange between NATO Command Structure (NCS), NATO Force Structure (NFS) elements and other key organisations.The focus is – as always – on the information technology’s researches and network-enabled capability development.It is clear that running the current NATO wide area network has challenges in terms of network management, information security and counter-cyber operations. Therefore, it requires a viable transformation to a wide area network with a higher-level resiliency and scalability.Having supported by NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA), the decade’s one of the most important tasks is to re-new, re-design and re-organise the existing classified network domain in support of efficient C2 for the current and future operations.In this scientific article, I will provide with a short historical background of NCIA’s efforts in creation of a more resilient classified domain-net and the needs of core and functional services within the Alliance to introduce the already decided, the viable solution of classified network enhancements.

Design System of Integrated Management Platform for Smart Park and Project Case

With the continuous development of 5G, big data, the Internet of Things (IOT) and other technologies, the smart park will realize data sharing, information processing and transmission, and finally tend to be smart city. There are some problems such as unclear design dimensions, poor interactivity of subsystems and high expansion costs in the development of smart park. In the face of these problems, an application-oriented comprehensive management platform system of intelligent park is designed. It is built on a digital twin software-defined campus which is scalability and flexibility with wisdom in the cloud and application at the end as the core service concept. The overall system architecture and management platform module composition are introduced in which the software defined network (SDN) technology is used to separate the control plane and data plane and the four dimensions of people, things, affairs and space are digitalization in the smart Park. One application carries a variety of park services such as production, official business handling, property administration and so on to realize the effective application of the underlying network facilities. The project of high-tech information intelligent park of the Chinese Sixth Design and Research Institute of Machinery Industry Company Limited has been implemented. As an engineering case the platform system can provide personalized design for the park and carry out multi-professional and multi-terminal integrated management, application and display so as to improve the intelligent management level and the service experience to create greater economic and social value.

Health Disparities Investigator Development through a Team-Science Pilot Projects Program.

Profound health disparities are widespread among Native Hawaiians, other Pacific Islanders, and Filipinos in Hawai'i. Efforts to reduce and eliminate health disparities are limited by a shortage of investigators trained in addressing the genetic, socio economic, and environmental factors that contribute to disparities. In this conference proceedings report from the 2022 RCMI Consortium National Conference, we describe our mentoring program, with an emphasis on community-engaged research. Elements include our encouragement of a team-science, customized Pilot Projects Program (PPP), a Mentoring Bootcamp, and a mentoring support network. During 2017-2022, we received 102 PPP preproposals. Of these, 45 (48%) were invited to submit full proposals, and 22 (19%) were awarded (8 basic biomedical, 7 clinical, 7 behavioral). Eighty-three percent of awards were made to early-career faculty (31% ethnic minority, 72% women). These 22 awards generated 77 related publications; 84 new grants were submitted, of which 31 were awarded with a resultant return on investment of 5.9. From 5 to 11 investigators were supported by PPP awards each year. A robust usage of core services was observed. Our descriptive report (as part of a scientific conference session on RCMI specialized centers) focuses on a mentoring vehicle and shows how it can support early-stage investigators in pursuing careers in health disparities research.

Access to information research in the digital era

Access to information research in the digital era

The role of vascular surgery in intraoperative emergency consultations

Aim: Vascular surgery is an important part of the multidisciplinary approach to surgical treatments, and vascular surgeons are often called on intraoperatively to provide immediate assistance to their colleagues. Our aim was to describe the extent of assistance provided during emergency intraoperative consultations at a single tertiary academic centre. Material and Methods: We reviewed the records of patients who were consulted intraoperatively in our hospital over a period of approximately 4 years (January 1, 2017-December 31, 2020) and organized the data collected. Results: 40 emergency intraoperative consultations were identified. 55% of the patients were female, with an average age of 48.83 years. The most frequently consulted subspecialty was obstetrics and gynecology (32%). Index cases were elective/nonurgent (90%), most involving tumor resection (77.5%). The primary reason for vascular consultation was revascularization (37.5%). The primary blood vessel and anatomic field of intervention were categorized. Most cases (50%) included preservation of blood flow, including primary arterial repair (20%) and ligation of the bleeding vessels (20%) in the first choice. Postoperative mean length of stay was 13 days, with a 30-day mortality of 5.1%. Conclusion: Using a wide variety of skills and techniques, vascular surgeons strive to respond to urgent open surgical consultations in various anatomical sites. Our study provides evidence to the wide range of knowledge and skills required for modern vascular surgeons and the place of the subspecialty in the core services offered in a multidisciplinary approach.

Intra-Organizational Communication in Public Agencies: The Effects of Contracting Out Core Services

This article develops and tests a set of hypotheses examining how contracting out of public services affects intra-organizational communication in public agencies (i.e., the principal organization). We draw from two competing perspectives: contracting scholarship argues that outsourcing reduces an organization's structural complexity and enhances intra-organizational communication, while organizational communication studies suggest that outsourcing might lead to fragmented communication pathways and a loss of information. In order to reconcile these perspectives, we examine how different characteristics of an organization's contracting network affect both the internal gathering and dissemination of information. Using survey and contractual relationship data from approximately 200 US transit agencies, we find that contracting out a large portion of services improves intra-organizational communication but this positive effect decreases as the number of contractors grows. Long and stable relationships with contractors negatively affect intra-organizational communication, especially when occurring with private—as compared to public—contractors. Our results suggest the need to further investigate intra-organizational communication in contracting networks and better understand how it may affect organizational performance and contract management.

An automated system for cattle reproductive management under the IoT framework. Part I: the e-Synch system and cow responses

The objective of this manuscript was to present the e-Synch system, integrating an intravaginal electronically controlled hormone delivery and sensing device with an IoT platform for remote programming and monitoring. Secondary objectives were to demonstrate system functionality and cow responses to e-Synch. External components of e-Synch include a 3D-printed case with retention wings, a flexible wideband antenna, and silicone membrane for pressure balancing. Internal components include a central control board, battery, wireless charging coil, and two silicone hormone reservoirs connected to individual peristaltic pumps. An accelerometer and a high-accuracy temperature sensor are integrated in the custom printed circuit board (PCB). The IoT platform includes a gateway consisting of Raspberry PI 3 and a CC1352 radiofrequency module that collects sensor data at 915 mHz. Data is transferred to the Google Cloud utilizing the IoT Core service through TCP/IP, and then is pulled by the Pub/Sub service. After routing to a BigQuery table by the Dataflow service, data visualization is provided by Data Studio. Drug delivery protocols are selected using an IOS device app that connects to e-Synch through Bluetooth. Experiments with lactating Holsteins cows were conducted to demonstrate proof-of-concept system functionality and evaluate cow responses. Despite unstable communication and signal discontinuity because of signal strength attenuation by body tissue, devices (n=6) communicated with the IoT platform in 89% (24/27) of use instances. Temperature and accelerometer data were received for at least one 15 min period during an 8 h insertion period from all devices that communicated with the IoT platform. Variation in accelerometer data (± 8.565 m/s2) was consistent with cow activity during experimentation and mean vaginal temperature of 39.1 °C (range 38.6 to 39.5 °C) demonstrated sensor functionality. Hormone release was confirmed in all instances of device use except for one. Cow behavior evaluated through signs of discomfort and pain, and tail raising scores was mostly unaltered by e-Synch. Vaginal integrity and mucus scores also remained unaltered during and after device insertion. In conclusion, the e-Synch device integrated with a controlling app and IoT platform might be used to automate intravaginal hormone delivery and sensing for controlling the estrous cycle of cattle.

Intelligent online selling point extraction and generation for e‐commerce recommendation

AbstractDuring the past decade, great significant advancements have been witnessed in the domain of automatic product description generation. As the services provided by e‐commerce platforms become diverse, it is necessary to dynamically adapt the patterns of descriptions generated. The selling point of products is an important type of product description for which the length should be as short as possible while still conveying key information. In addition, this kind of product description should be eye‐catching to the readers. Currently, product selling points are normally written by human experts. Thus, the creation and maintenance of these contents incur high costs. These costs can be significantly reduced if product selling points can be automatically generated by machines. In this paper, we report our experience developing and deploying the intelligent online selling point extraction (IOSPE) system to serve the recommendation system in the JD.com e‐commerce platform. In addition, an interactive tool is released for merchants in JD.COM, which additionally allow them to select and customize the selling points with flexibility. Since July 2020, IOSPE has become a core service for 62 key categories of products (covering more than four million products). So far, it has generated more than 0.1 billion selling points, thereby significantly scaling up the selling point creation operation and saving human labor. These IOSPE‐generated selling points have increased the click‐through rate (CTR) by 1.89% and the average duration the customers spent on the products by more than 2.03% compared to the previous practice, which are significant improvements for such a large‐scale e‐commerce platform.