Delivery Issues Research Articles

Enhancement of E-commerce Service by Designing Last Mile Delivery Platform

The revolution of technology and the rapid evolution of the digital world had a significant effect on the development and expansion of e-commerce. Last mile delivery, for which different app-based delivery services have recently emerged, is a new area of research that is not thoroughly addressed. Delivery service is one of the supporting platforms of e-commerce. One of the delivery issues is that many customers experience difficulties in communicating and coordinating with the logistics companies responsible for the delivery service. This challenge is emphasized in this study which introduces a new system to facilitate communication and coordination between customers and logistics companies by using one identity and one interface. This paper is a programming-based study, as the proposed system evaluates a website to serve logistics companies as well as designs an application (app) to serve the customers of logistics companies. Swift, a powerful open-source and object-oriented programming language, and the mark-up language (HTML) were used to build the last mile delivery system. In addition, Firebase, a cloud-hosted real-time database built on Google infrastructure, were used to develop the system. By increasing the level of customer satisfaction and reducing delivery failure rates, this system will eventually increase the prosperity of e-commerce.

Scheduling of Separable Mobile Energy Storage Systems With Mobile Generators and Fuel Tankers to Boost Distribution System Resilience

Mobile energy resources (MERs) have been shown to boost DS resilience effectively in recent years. In this paper, we propose a novel idea, the separable mobile energy storage system (SMESS), as an attempt to further extend the flexibility of MER applications. “Separable” denotes that the carrier and the energy storage modules are treated as independent parts, which allows the carrier to carry multiple modules and scatter them independently throughout the DS. The constraints for scheduling SMESSs involving carriers and modules are derived based upon the interactive behavior among them and the DS. In addition, the fuel delivery issue of feeding mobile emergency generators (MEGs), which was usually bypassed in previous studies involving the scheduling of MEGs, is also considered and modeled. SMESSs, MEGs, and fuel tankers (FTs) are then jointly routed and scheduled, along with the dynamic DS reconfiguration, for DS service restoration by integrating them in a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. Finally, the test is conducted on the modified IEEE test systems, and results verify the effectiveness of the model in boosting DS resilience.

Polymer nano-systems for the encapsulation and delivery of active biomacromolecular therapeutic agents.

Biomacromolecular therapeutic agents, particularly proteins, antigens, enzymes, and nucleic acids are emerging as powerful candidates for the treatment of various diseases and the development of the recent vaccine based on mRNA highlights the enormous potential of this class of drugs for future medical applications. However, biomacromolecular therapeutic agents present an enormous delivery challenge compared to traditional small molecules due to both a high molecular weight and a sensitive structure. Hence, the translation of their inherent pharmaceutical capacity into functional therapies is often hindered by the limited performance of conventional delivery vehicles. Polymer drug delivery systems are a modular solution able to address those issues. In this review, we discuss recent developments in the design of polymer delivery systems specifically tailored to the delivery challenges of biomacromolecular therapeutic agents. In the future, only in combination with a multifaceted and highly tunable delivery system, biomacromolecular therapeutic agents will realize their promising potential for the treatment of diseases and for the future of human health.

Using <i>Grammarly</i> to Enhance Students’ Academic Writing Skills

The paper aims to present the results of the experiment in applying the online writing assistant Grammarly.com to evaluate ESP students’ essay writing skills. One hundred master students’ papers were processed by the application to identify persisting errors at a master’s level. Quantitative and qualitative methods enabled the researchers to analyze the essays by setting five parameters: audience, formality, domain, tone, and intent. At the other end, the application broke down the outcome by five measurable factors: correctness, clarity, delivery, engagement, and style issues. The representative number of the essays fed into Grammarly.com provided a vivid and reliable picture of which lexis, grammar, structure, or style issues still need addressing. The most common mistakes detected by Grammarly.com were punctuation, wordy sentences, redundancy, and the abundance of personal pronouns in a formal style. They show that the gaps in students’ academic writing need a remedial course. Another objective of the research was to explore the potential of the online writing tool for students’ self-study. Grammarly.com cannot do work for students: it cannot think for them, neither can it write for them, but it can help learners identify the reoccurring writing problems, eliminate them, and monitor the progress. The application could be particularly useful for advanced students. The functionality of the Grammarly premium version allows for a choice of styles, type of addressee, tone of writing, and many other nuances, which could be beneficial not only for studies but in future professional life. Nonetheless, despite Grammarly’s advanced features, it only suggests a better variant, sometimes it errs, and in no way is it a substitute for a teacher.

Home Health Agencies With More Socially Vulnerable Patients Have Poorer Experience of Care Ratings.

Examine the relationships between dual eligibility and race/ethnicity characteristics of Medicare-Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHAs) and experience of care ratings. Analysis of 2017 national Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems and matched datasets of 10,906 CHHAs. CHHAs with higher concentrations of dual-eligible patients were less likely to have high experience of care ratings for all three domains (e.g., for care delivery, quartile 4 vs. 1: odds ratio [OR] = 0.622, p < .001); CHHAs with higher concentrations of racial/ethnic minorities generally were less likely to have high experience of care ratings in care delivery (e.g., Black: quartile 4 vs. 1: OR = 0.418, p<0.001), communication (e.g., Black: quartile 4 vs. 1: OR = 0.316, p<0.001), and specific care issues (e.g., Hispanic: quartile 4 vs. 1: OR = 0.397, p < .001). CHHAs with greater concentrations of dual-eligible patients and racial/ethnic minorities were more likely to have poor experience of care ratings.

Home Health Agencies With More Socially Vulnerable Patients Have Lower Experience-of-Care Ratings

Little is known about the disparities in patient experience of home health (HH) care related to social vulnerability. This study examined the relationships of patient Medicare-Medicaid dual eligible status and race and ethnicity with patient experience of HH care. We analyzed national data from the Home Health Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS), Outcome and Assessment Information Set, Medicare claims and Area Health Resources File for 11,137 Medicare-certified HH agencies (HHA) that provided care for Medicare beneficiaries in 2017. Patient-reported experience of care star ratings (1-5) in HHCAHPS included 3 domains (professional care delivery, effective communication, and specific issues in direct patient care) with each dichotomized into high (4-5) and low (1-3) experience of care. The proportion of patients with dual eligibility and the proportion of racial/ethnic minorities were summarized at the HHA level. HHA with higher proportion of dual eligible patients were less likely to have high experience of care rating in professional care delivery (smallest Odds Ratio [OR]=0.514; 95% CI: 0.397, 0.665; p<0.001), effective communication (smallest OR=0.442, 95% CI: 0.336, 0.583; p<0.001), and specific direct care issues (smallest OR=0.697, 95% CI: 0.540, 0.899; p=0.006). HHA with higher proportion of racial/ethnic minorities were also less likely to have high patient experience of care rating across all three domains (smallest OR=0.265, 95% CI: 0.189, 0.370; p<0.001). Disparities in patient experience of HH care exist and they are associated with low income and racial/ethnic minority status, indicating substantial unmet needs among these socially vulnerable patients.

Abstract LBA018: Discovery of novel functional TROP2 antibodies for treatment of epithelial cancers

Abstract Trophoblast cell surface antigen-2 (TROP2) is a membrane-bound protein with an extracellular domain highly expressed in a wide range of late-stage epithelial cancers. TROP2 upregulation in solid cancers is associated with increased tumor aggressiveness, metastasis, and an overall decreased survival in large groups of difficult-to-treat cancers, making it an attractive target for cancer therapy. TROP2 positive cancers have been successfully targeted by antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) but not naked functional antibodies. ADC’s have associated drug toxicity in healthy tissues, off-target effects, and payload delivery issues. Given ADC dose-limiting side effects, narrow therapeutic windows, and efficacy limitations, there is a pressing need to improve anti-TROP2 therapeutics for patients who are poorly served by current therapies, if at all. Understanding these needs, we applied our proprietary heavy chain-only antibody (HCAb) transgenic mouse platform to the creation of therapeutic anti-TROP2 antibodies. After immunization, anti-TROP2 antibodies were selected using VHH (variable region of HCAbs)-phage-display. Due to their size and shape, VHH antibodies target a broader spectrum of epitopes compared to full size VH/VL antibodies. Further, VHH antibodies are associated with high affinity, stability, and robustness. In this abstract, we describe five novel anti-TROP2 HCAbs without ADC payloads that induce in vivo tumor regression in murine xenograft models of human cancers. When tested in an in vitro viability assay with the MDA-MB-453 triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell line, a novel anti-TROP2 HCAb significantly reduced cancer cell numbers compared to other anti-TROP2 antibodies in the absence of complement or effector cells. In the in vivo MDA-MB-453 TNBC established xenograft model, tumor regression was achieved with five different TROP2 HCAbs at 8mg/kg administered once per week, and in the in vivo established model of MDA-MB-231 strong anti-tumor efficacy was also achieved. In binding cross-reactivity experiments, anti-TROP2 HCAbs showed similar binding to human and cynomolgus TROP2 and low binding to the mouse or rat orthologs. Anti-TROP2 HCAbs bind to a panel of TROP2-expressing human cancer cell lines, including a wide range of human epithelial tumours, such as breast, colon, lung and pancreatic cancers. Epitope binding by competitive ELISA showed that binding to TROP2 by these HCAbs could not be competed by hRS7 or other anti-TROP2 antibodies demonstrating that they target epitopes different from known TROP2 antibodies. Our preclinical data demonstrates the potent anti-tumor activity on TROP2-positive cancers by novel anti-TROP2 HCAbs without the need for cytotoxic payloads. These results and additional data highlight the feasibility of developing functional anti-TROP2 antibodies for clinical use which avoid the challenges of ADCs. Citation Format: Israel Matos, Hiba Zahreddine, Yahya Ashraf, Aditya Pandey, Emily Chen, Liying Gong, Alex Zhou, Claire Bonfils, Aniel Moya, Yun Cui, Xiaowei Wang, Elijus Undzyz, Shugang Yao, Jacynthe Toulouse, Dominic Hou, Gordon Ngan, Luis da Cruz, David Young. Discovery of novel functional TROP2 antibodies for treatment of epithelial cancers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC Virtual International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2021 Oct 7-10. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2021;20(12 Suppl):Abstract nr LBA018.

Would compensation be necessary? The importance of service recovery strategy in e-retail delivery problems

PurposeThis study examines the different effects of service recovery strategies on customers' future intentions when online shoppers were experiencing delivery failures. Two types of problem severity are evaluated: wrong-product delivery (issues with the product quality or quantity) and late delivery. This study also investigates the impact of service criticality on the relationship between service recovery strategies and customers' future intentions.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs experimental research with 123 online shoppers as participants. Following the results, a subsequent test is conducted to examine the effect of participants' demographics on future intentions. Finally, the current study elaborates the findings using qualitative research, interviewing both sides impacted by the service failures: online shoppers and e-retail managers.FindingsThe findings show that complementing product replacement with monetary compensation is the most effective strategy to improve repurchase intention after a dissatisfaction moment. This effect is indifferent to service criticality and severity. Age influences the participants' repurchase intentions, in which younger people are less tolerant of service failures. In contrast, gender and education level do not provide any differences. To prevent delivery failures, managers participating in this study suggest several best practices regarding systems and infrastructure, people and coordination and collaboration with logistics partners.Research limitations/implicationsThe study mainly examines a limited type of service and service failures. Further studies are encouraged to expand the variables and scenarios, as well as to employ more distinctive methods, to enrich the findings related to recovery strategy in the e-commerce industry.Practical implicationsGiven proper compensation, service failure could create momentum for online retailers to boost customer loyalty. This study suggests that managers design the most effective service recovery to win customers back to the business.Originality/valueThis paper enriches the literature related to a service recovery strategy, particularly within the online shopping context.

Compensatory justice to the victim of a crime and judicial practices in India: An empirical study

The Constitution of India guarantees that justice shall be delivered to all. The duty to ensure that justice delivery is accessible to all is entrusted to state bodies. The legislature is expected to ensure that the legal framework is there, the executive is expected to ensure that all infrastructural needs of the justice delivery system are in place, and the judiciary is expected to ensure that justice is delivered in their area. This paper deals with the issue of delivery of victim justice, with a special focus on compensatory mechanisms laid down under the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973. The Code empowers the courts to award compensation to the victim of a crime to ensure his/her rehabilitation. In light of the observations made by the Supreme Court of India that the trial court judges do not exercise their discretionary power under the relevant statutory provisions to award compensation to the victims of a crime, this paper explores the extent of such failure and the reasons behind it.

Use of environmental scans in health services delivery research: a scoping review

ObjectiveTo examine the extent and nature of evidence on the use of the environmental scan (ES) in the health services delivery literature.DesignScoping review.MethodsThis scoping review followed the five-stage scoping review...

Deep learning‐influenced joint vehicle‐to‐infrastructure and vehicle‐to‐vehicle communication approach for internet of vehicles

AbstractThe internet of vehicle (IoV) orchestration is an emerging technology in heterogeneous vehicles to contrivance diverse intelligent transportation applications. The roadside unit (RSU) plays a vital role during service provisioning. Vehicle‐to‐vehicle and vehicle‐to‐infrastructure communications have consistently accomplished the services in a vehicular network. However, persisting the increased vehicles' quality of experience and network vendors' utilities and which RSUs have to select for effective, reliable service are critical open research challenges to consolidate RSU services to enhance network service utility rate. In this article, we design a deep learning‐inspired RSU Service Consolidation Approach based on two‐models to enhance the service reliability by formulating the RSU coverage issue with the RSU Migration model and content delivery issue with Linear Programming‐based Multicast model. Adaptive Packet‐Error measurement system to optimize service reliability rate at the edge of cooperative vehicular network based on content correlation. The performance and efficiency are examined based on MATLAB. The simulation outcome shows RSC approach has low execution cost by 39%, service reliability rate by 71% than the state‐of‐art approaches.

Metabolism of hyperpolarised [1-13 C]pyruvate in awake and anaesthetised rat brains.

The use of hyperpolarised 13 C pyruvate for nononcological neurological applications has not been widespread so far, possibly due to delivery issues limiting the visibility of metabolites. First proof-of-concept results have indicated that metabolism can be detected in human brain, and this may supersede the results obtained in preclinical settings. One major difference between the experimental setups is that preclinical MRI/MRS routinely uses anaesthesia, which alters both haemodynamics and metabolism. Here, we used hyperpolarised [1-13 C]pyruvate to compare brain metabolism in awake rats and under isoflurane, urethane or medetomidine anaesthesia. Spectroscopic [1-13 C]pyruvate time courses measured sequentially showed that pyruvate-to-bicarbonate and pyruvate-to-lactate labelling rates were lower in isoflurane animals than awake animals. An increased bicarbonate-to-lactate ratio was observed in the medetomidine group compared with other groups. The study shows that hyperpolarised [1-13 C]pyruvate experiments can be performed in awake rats, thus avoiding anaesthesia-related issues. The results suggest that haemodynamics probably dominate the observed pyruvate-to-metabolite labelling rates and area-under-time course ratios of referenced to pyruvate. On the other hand, the results obtained with medetomidine suggest that the ratios are also modulated by the underlying cerebral metabolism. However, the ratios between intracellular metabolites were unchanged in awake compared with isoflurane-anaesthetised rats.

Cost Effective Day -Ahead Scheduling with Stochastic Load and Intermittency Forecasting for Distribution System Considering Distributed Energy Resources

ABSTRACT Energy Sources with high intermittencies have made the grid complex. These sources utilize renewable resources to generate clean energy, but power management and power delivery are badly affected. Stochastic forecasting and optimized power scheduling techniques can help to solve the issue of reliable power delivery and reduce the complexity of the distribution system. In this paper, load and intermittency forecasting of DER (Distributed Energy Resources) is done by stochastic techniques. Using the obtained forecasted parameters, power is scheduled to minimize the day’s operating cost with constraints modeled from DER and power flow of the system. The DER used are MG (Microgrid), DG (Distributed Generation), and DS (Distribution Storage). The problem is formulated using YALMIP and solved using GUROBI in the MATLAB platform. A 33-bus system is used as a test system to validate the algorithm. The proposed method results in a 20.79% reduction in operating cost when compared to nonforecasted intermittency and load, nonoptimized scheduling conditions. Also, an 8.96% reduction in operating cost is obtained compared to optimized scheduling and nonforecasted intermittency and load conditions.

Design and evaluation of thermo-responsive nasal in situ gelling system dispersed with piribedil loaded lecithin-chitosan hybrid nanoparticles for improved brain availability

Piribedil (PBD) is a compound that has shown efficacy in clinical trials to treat motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. However, drug delivery issues like low oral bioavailability, high dosing frequency (3–5 tablets/day), gastrointestinal side-effects reduced the clinical use of PBD. In this work, we have developed lecithin-chitosan hybrid nanoparticles (PBD-LCNs) to improve the direct nose to brain uptake of PBD. PBD-LCNs were optimized using hybrid design approach based on DoE. The mean particle size and drug loading of PBD-LCNs were 147 nm, and 12%, respectively. The PBD-LCNs showed good stability and were found to be nearly spherical in shape. Further, the optimized LCNs were loaded in methylcellulose thermo-responsive in situ gel (PBD-LCN-ISG) to overcome rapid mucociliary clearance upon intranasal administration. Plasma and brain pharmacokinetic studies in rats showed that PBD-LCN-ISG increased the relative bioavailability of PBD in brain (AUCbrain) by about 6.4-folds and reduced the (Cmax)plasma by 3.7-folds when compared to plain intranasal suspension of PBD (PBD-Susp). Further, PBD-Susp showed limited direct nose to brain uptake with DTP values less than 0, while the optimized PBD-LCNs showed DTP value of 56% indicating efficient direct nose to brain uptake. Overall, the development of nanoformulations significantly improved the direct nose to brain uptake of PBD.This article is part of the special Issue on ‘Stress, Addiction and Plasticity'.

Microfluidics for Development of Lipid Nanoparticles: Paving the Way for Nucleic Acids to the Clinic.

Nucleic acid therapeutics hold an unprecedented promise toward treating many challenging diseases; however, their use is hampered by delivery issues. Microfluidics, dealing with fluids in the microscale dimensions, have provided a robust means to screening raw materials for development of nano delivery vectors, in addition to controlling their size and minimizing their polydispersity. In this mini-review, we are briefly highlighting the different types of nucleic acid therapies with emphasis on the delivery requirement for each type. We provide a thorough review of available methods for the development of nanoparticles, especially lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that resulted in FDA approval of the first ever nucleic acid nanomedicine. We then focus on recent research attempts for how microfluidic synthesis of lipid nanoparticles and discuss the various parameters required for successful formulation of LPNs including chip design, flow regimes, and lipid composition. We then identify key areas of research in microfluidics and related fields that require attention for future success in clinical translation of nucleic acid nanomedicines.

Last-mile challenges in on-demand food delivery during COVID-19: understanding the riders' perspective using a grounded theory approach

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the last-mile (LM) challenges faced by on-demand food delivery (ODFD) riders during the coronavirus pandemic. This study contributes to the literature on the less-explored domain of ODFD services.Design/methodology/approachA grounded theory methodology is used. Riders working for multiple ODFD firms in various urban and semi-urban areas of India were interviewed. Open, axial and selective coding of interview transcripts was done.FindingsA grounded model is developed consisting of riders' challenges represented broadly under four core categories: Operational, Customer-related, Organisational and Technological issues. The study indicates that while some of the challenges are inherent to the ODFD supply chain, these have been visibly exposed and intensified by COVID-19, while other challenges are specific to the pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThe model is a qualitative proposition representing LM delivery issues in ODFD services faced by the riders in India's urban and semi-urban areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other countries may face similar problems, but further studies are necessary to confirm or refute the findings.Practical implicationsODFD companies must address the riders' issues to better adapt to the current and future disruptions and improve riders' quality of work–life to achieve operational excellence.Originality/valueThis study builds on the extant ODFD literature by focusing on one of its less addressed aspects: the working conditions of the riders. This work is conducted amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of a developing country and aims to study the challenges in ODFD operations.

Sustainable Urban Development for Older Australians: Understanding the Formation of Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities in the Greater Brisbane Region

As most older Australians prefer to age-in-place, providing sustainable and age-friendly communities poses a significant challenge to urban policymakers. The naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) have organically emerged as a collaborative model of care to support older adults to age-in-place, but neither academic research nor government policies recognise this housing option for older Australians. This paper aims to analyse the distributions and temporal patterns of NORCs in the Greater Brisbane Region, Australia, to understand the formation and development of NORCs. The geovisualisation method was employed to identify the distribution changes of NORCs between 2006 and 2016. The Global Moran’s I and Local Moran’s I measures were utilised to analyse the spatial correlation and the clusters of NORCs. The results show that NORCs increased significantly from 2006 to 2016, and their distribution was mainly clustered or co-located along the coastline and Brisbane River areas. The evolvement of NORCs reflected the change of aggregation pattern of older population between 2006 and 2016. Understanding the distribution trend of NORCs informs government policy and decisions in addressing issues of service delivery and community cooperation, and eventually leads to sustainable urban development and successful ageing in place for older Australians.

COVID-19 lockdown and recovery: a dental public health perspective from Lancashire and South Cumbria.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created novel barriers in providing and accessing all forms of healthcare, including dentistry. The national dental response during the first peak of the pandemic resulted in rapid changes in the provision of service, to safeguard providers and users of dental care.Such rapidly leveraged changes resulted in several issues in service delivery, requiring careful input from managers and commissioners within NHS England and Improvement, trainees and consultants in dental public health within Public Health England, and frontline dental teams working across the health and social care system. The local response from Lancashire and South Cumbria is outlined within this article.Teamwork, communication and reflexive, iterative learning from these groups ensured the delivery of an Urgent Dental Care service during the first lockdown of the pandemic.The impact of COVID-19 has enabled considerable learning which will inform future pandemic planning, alongside providing the opportunity to deliver meaningful change within NHS dentistry as the service continues to recover.

3D Aerial Highway: The Key Enabler of the Retail Industry Transformation

The retail industry is facing an inevitable transformation worldwide, which is accelerating with the current pandemic situation. Indeed, consumer habits are shifting from brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping. The bottleneck in the online shopping experience remains efficient and fast delivery to consumers. In this context, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology is seen as a potential solution to address cargo delivery issues. Hence, the number of cargo UAVs is expected to increase in the next few decades and the airspace to become crowded. To successfully deploy UAVs for mass cargo delivery, seamless and reliable cellular connectivity for cargo UAVs is required. Thus, organized and “connected” routes in the sky are needed. Like highways for vehicles, 3D routes in the airspace should be designed to fulfill cargo UAV operations safely and efficiently. We refer to these routes as “3D aerial highways.” In this article, we investigate the feasibility of the aerial highways paradigm. First, we discuss the related motivations and concerns. Then we present our aerial highways paradigm design. Finally, we present linked connectivity issues and potential solutions.

The potential use of Drosophila as an in vivo model organism for COVID-19-related research: a review.

The world urgently needs effective antiviral approaches against emerging viruses, as shown by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has become an exponentially growing health crisis. Scientists from diverse backgrounds have directed their efforts towards identifying key features of SARS-CoV-2 and clinical manifestations of COVID-19 infection. Reports of more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2 also raise concerns over the possibility of an explosive trajectory of the pandemic, so scientific attention should focus on developing new weapons to help win the fight against coronaviruses that may undergo further mutations in the future. Drosophila melanogaster offers a powerful and potential in vivo model that can significantly increase the efficiency of drug screening for viral and bacterial infections. Thanks to its genes with functional human homologs, Drosophila could play a significant role in such gene-editing studies geared towards designing vaccines and antiviral drugs for COVID-19. It can also help rectify current drawbacks of CRISPR-based therapeutics like off-target effects and delivery issues, representing another momentous step forward in healthcare. Here I present an overview of recent literature and the current state of knowledge, explaining how it can open up new avenues for Drosophila in our battle against infectious diseases.