Largest Gap Research Articles

Students With Specific Difficulties in Geometry: Exploring the TIMSS 2011 Data With Plausible Values and Latent Profile Analysis

This study analyzed the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2011 data on fourth-grade U.S. students’ mathematics performance to answer four research questions: (a) How did U.S. students’ geometry performance compare with their performance on the other mathematics subscales? (b) What were the patterns of student achievement among the mathematics subscales? (c) Was there a group of students who demonstrated specific difficulties in geometry only? and (d) Which demographic variables contributed to students’ classification in the group with geometry difficulties? We found that (a) U.S. students’ performance was poorer on the Geometry subscale than on other mathematics subscales; (b) using latent profile modeling, we identified a group of students with the lowest scores across all three mathematics subscales who showed a significant discrepancy between Geometry and the other subscales that did not exist within the high-achieving and average-achieving groups; and (c) gender, age, home language, race, and preference for mathematics and science significantly influenced the probability of being classified in the group with the lowest performance and the largest gap between Geometry and other mathematics subscales. Implications for educational theory and practice are discussed.

Analisis Tingkat Kepuasan Pengguna Sistem Informasi Kerja Praktek dan Skripsi (SKKP) Menggunakan Metode End User Computing Satisfaction (EUCS)

The advantages of information technology in the education has developed a lot, especially in universities. An example of the application of tertiary level information technology is the delivery of information presented through the university's official website. One of the web-based systems owned by the STTI Tanjungpinang is the Sistem Informasi Kerja Praktek dan Skripsi (SKKP). With this technology, the process of submitting titles to the registration of practical work trials and student theses has been switched online. Analysis of the level of satisfaction is important to know the extent of expectations and perceptions of system users in an effort to achieve the perfection of an information system and can meet user expectations. One method in analyzing user satisfaction levels is end user computing satisfaction (EUCS). Dimensions in EUCS consist of content, accuracy, format, ease of use and timeliness. This type of research is descriptive research that is intended to describe the phenomena that exist, which took place at this time or in the past. Data collection methods included observation, interviews and distribution of questionnaires with a sample of 35 respondents who were active SKKP users. The results of the analysis of user satisfaction level SKKP STTI Tanjungpinang using the EUCS method of 78.69% with a gap of 21.31% means users are in the range of satisfied categories. From the five dimensions, the variable content has the smallest gap of 8.69% while the largest gap is in the accuracy variable, which is 32.02%.

Learning Achievement Analysis of Male and Female Students at the PPNS and Polmed to Meet the Global Challenges

Industry revolution 4.0 era provides opportunities as well as threats for the students and alumni graduated from vocational education. Man roles are gradually taken by automatic machines. Consequently, unemployment is increasing. This certainly will contribute to the either local or national problems. Therefore, vocational education students have to intensify their learning achievements. This study discusses the learning achievements of the male and female students at the Shipbuiding Institute of Polytechnic Surabaya (PPNS) and Medan State Polytechnic (Polmed). The analysis of learning achievements in this study used the documentation data of the GPA in scale 4, taking the whole population either male (M) or female (F) in the academic year 2015/2016, 2016/2017, and 2017/2018. In the last three years, total PPNS’s graduates are 1959 (1418 male, 541 female) and Polmed’s are 5938 (2821 male, 3117 female). Based on the descriptive quantitative analysis, the average of learning achievements at PPNS shows that accumulated GPA of the female students’ is 3.39 > male students’ 3.28. While at Polmed, it is GPA of female students’ is 3.27 > male students’ 3.14. Total of students is still gender imbalance referring to the graduates data in year 2018 for PPNS’ Welding Study Program in which having only two female students with average GPA 3.41 and 53 students with average GPA 3.15, meanwhile at Polmed, the total students with largest gap in gender occured at the Mechanical Engineering Study Program with total of male students 240 (average GPA 3.10) and female students only 11 (average GPA 3.20). This result indicates that in these two vocational educational institutions, e.i. PPNS and Polmed, the learning achievement of female students is betterand more competitivable than the other

Application of Fuzzy Servqual Method to Measure User Satisfaction of Mooc Service Quality

To determine the level of success and effectiveness of MOOC in the learning system, it is important to measure the quality of service. The aim of this study is to measure the perceptions and expectations of MOOC users. The method of this study is the SERVQUAL model which is combined with a fuzzy approach, so that it can be measured accurately. From the calculation, the results show that Reliability dimension has the largest gap with a gap value (-13,2325), so there are needed an improvement by the university. While Assurance dimension has the smallest gap with a value of gap (-10,0025) this is considered by the user to be a better dimension than the others. From the calculation of the overall gap value obtained, the result shows a value of -57.65, which means that the quality of service received by users is not in line with expectations.

Assessment of the Quality of Public Hospital Healthcare Services by using SERVQUAL.

SUMMARYHospital healthcare service quality measurement represents an important approach for advancing healthcare systems. This paper presents preliminary results of a research on the quality of healthcare services provided by a large, public, university hospital centre in Croatia, based on the Gaps Model of Service Quality and the SERVQUAL instrument. The importance of particular service quality dimensions was analyzed, as well as the gaps between patient perceptions and expectations of healthcare services provided by 18 departments of the university hospital centre. Results revealed the gaps that exist at the level of the university hospital centre as a whole, showing the size variations in different service quality dimensions. The management of the university hospital centre should improve healthcare service quality in all dimensions by paying particular attention to the ‘responsiveness’ and ‘tangibility’, where the largest gap was identified.

Urban Oxidation Flow Reactor Measurements Reveal Significant Secondary Organic Aerosol Contributions from Volatile Emissions of Emerging Importance.

Mobile sampling studies have revealed enhanced levels of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) in source-rich urban environments. While these enhancements can be from rapidly reacting vehicular emissions, it was recently hypothesized that nontraditional emissions (volatile chemical products and upstream emissions) are emerging as important sources of urban SOA. We tested this hypothesis by using gas and aerosol mass spectrometry coupled with an oxidation flow reactor (OFR) to characterize pollution levels and SOA potentials in environments influenced by traditional emissions (vehicular, biogenic), and nontraditional emissions (e.g., paint fumes). We used two SOA models to assess contributions of vehicular and biogenic emissions to our observed SOA. The largest gap between observed and modeled SOA potential occurs in the morning-time urban street canyon environment, for which our model can only explain half of our observation. Contributions from VCP emissions (e.g., personal care products) are highest in this environment, suggesting that VCPs are an important missing source of precursors that would close the gap between modeled and observed SOA potential. Targeted OFR oxidation of nontraditional emissions shows that these emissions have SOA potentials that are similar, if not larger, compared to vehicular emissions. Laboratory experiments reveal large differences in SOA potentials of VCPs, implying the need for further characterization of these nontraditional emissions.

The shift of obesity burden by socioeconomic status between 1998 and 2017 in Latin America and the Caribbean: a cross-sectional series study

SummaryBackgroundThe burden of obesity differs by socioeconomic status. We aimed to characterise the prevalence of obesity among adult men and women in Latin America and the Caribbean by socioeconomic measures and the shifting obesity burden over time.MethodsWe did a cross-sectional series analysis of obesity prevalence by socioeconomic status by use of national health surveys done between 1998 and 2017 in 13 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. We generated equiplots to display inequalities in, the primary outcome, obesity by wealth, education, and residence area. We measured obesity gaps as the difference in percentage points between the highest and lowest obesity prevalence within each socioeconomic measure, and described trends as well as changing patterns of the obesity burden over time.Findings479 809 adult men and women were included in the analysis. Obesity prevalence across countries has increased over time, with distinct patterns emerging by wealth and education indices. In the most recent available surveys, obesity was most prevalent among women in Mexico in 2016, and the least prevalent among women in Haiti in 2016. The largest gap between the highest and lowest obesity estimates by wealth was observed in Honduras among women (21·6 percentage point gap), and in Peru among men (22·4 percentage point gap), compared with a 3·7 percentage point gap among women in Brazil and 3·3 percentage points among men in Argentina. Urban residents consistently had a larger burden than their rural counterparts in most countries, with obesity gaps ranging from 0·1 percentage points among women in Paraguay to 15·8 percentage points among men in Peru. The trend analysis done in five countries suggests a shifting of the obesity burden across socioeconomic groups and different patterns by gender. Obesity gaps by education in Mexico have reduced over time among women, but increased among men, whereas the gap has increased among women but remains relatively constant among men in Argentina.InterpretationThe increase in obesity prevalence in the Latin American and Caribbean region has been paralleled with an unequal distribution and a shifting burden across socioeconomic groups. Anticipation of the establishment of obesity among low socioeconomic groups could provide opportunities for societal gains in primordial prevention.FundingNone.

Technical efficiency of rice production in Thailand: copula-based stochastic frontier model

The study aims to investigate Thai rice production efficiency with the copula-based stochastic frontier model to draft general statistical data for Thai agriculture development in the future. The empirical results show that land and fertilizer have an indisputably positive and significant effect on rice production. The SFM with Gaussian copula has the lowest value regarding to AIC. The best average TE score belongs to the northern region followed by the central region, the north-eastern region, and the southern region with their average scores of 0.86, 0.819, 0.76 and 0.74, respectively. The interesting point is that, even with highest efficiency score, there is the largest gap between the highest and the lowest scores within central region provinces, followed by north-eastern, central and northern regions with their values of 0.2, 0.18, 0.15 and 0.08, respectively.

Verification of a UAV swarm flight simulating the passive inertial emergency obstacle avoidance behavior of a pigeon flock

In this paper, the passive inertial emergency obstacle avoidance behavior of pigeons is studied and applied to the coordinated flight verification of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm. Pigeons in nature dynamically adjust their routes during flight. When they encounter obstacles, emergency behaviors are generated; i.e., they change the current direction passively, get cross obstacles toward the largest gap between obstacles, and thus complete obstacle avoidance. Prior to the flight verification, the design of the UAV swarm system architecture is explained. Further, two scenarios of static emergency obstacle avoidance on the ground and with moving obstacles in the air are set up. The corresponding timing sequence diagrams and flight path diagrams are also given.

Exploring Service Quality of Low Cost Airlines

Service quality is identified as a crucial factor in differentiating service and gaining competitive advantage in the service industry. This study seeks to understand the significant attributes of low-cost airlines' (LCAs) service quality through measuring the differences between passengers' expectations and perceptions. Using a modified SERVQUAL questionnaire, differences between passengers' expectations and perceptions regarding LCAs' service quality appeared to exist. It was also found that the responsiveness dimension is the most important dimension of LCAs' service quality. Attitudes toward baggage-overweight fees was considered very significant as it received the largest gap in the passengers' relative expectations and perceptions.

The population level care cascade for hepatitis C in British Columbia, Canada as of 2018: Impact of direct acting antivirals.

Population-level monitoring of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected people across cascades of care identifies gaps in access and engagement in care and treatment. We characterized the population-level care cascade for HCV in British Columbia (BC), Canada before and after introduction of Direct Acting Antiviral (DAA) treatment. BC Hepatitis Testers Cohort (BC-HTC) includes 1.7million individuals tested for HCV, HIV, reported cases of hepatitis B, and active tuberculosis in BC from 1990 to 2018 linked to medical visits, hospitalizations, cancers, prescription drugs and mortality data. We defined six HCV care cascade stages: (a) antibody diagnosed; (b) RNA tested; (c) RNA positive; (d) genotyped; (e) initiated treatment; and (f) achieved sustained virologic response (SVR). We estimated 61127 people were HCV antibody positive in BC in 2018 (undiagnosed: 7686, 13%; diagnosed: 53441, 87%). Of those diagnosed, 83% (44507) had HCV RNA testing, and of those RNA positive, 90% (28716) were genotyped. Of those genotyped, 61% (17441) received therapy, with 90% (15672) reaching SVR. Individuals from older birth cohorts had lower progression to HCV RNA testing. While people who currently inject drugs had the highest proportional progression to RNA testing, this group had the lowest proportional treatment uptake. Although gaps in HCV RNA and genotype testing after antibody diagnosis exist, the largest gap in the care cascade is treatment initiation, despite introduction of DAA treatment and removal of treatment eligibility restrictions. Further interventions are required to ensure testing and treatment is equitably accessible in BC.

A Model to Measure the Service Quality of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers

The study constituters a model to measure the service quality of pharmaceutical wholesalers in South Africa. Several pharmaceutical wholesalers distribute medical supplies throughout South Africa in a very regulated and competitive market where high service quality levels are anticipated. In this price-undifferentiated market, service quality can have a significant impact on the competitiveness of a pharmaceutical wholesaler. As a result, the primary objective was to develop a model to measure the service quality levels of large pharmaceutical wholesalers. The literature study compiled an industry profile of the South African pharmaceutical market, analysed service quality and then proposed an adapted SERVQUAL model to measure the service quality. A review of the literature also highlighted the general structure of the pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory framework in the supply of pharmaceutical products. The literature study also focuses specifically on the role and function of the pharmaceutical wholesaler in the supply chain. Data was collected from clients of a pharmaceutical wholesaler using to record the service expectations and perceptions on a seven-point Likert scale. Some 385 of the 4468 clients completed and returned the industry-adapted SERVQUAL survey questionnaires on the electronic platform Google Forms (signifying an 8.6% response rate). The results showed that the data were reliable with a Cronbach alpha coefficient higher than 0.70. The results also show that in five, the service dimensions gap where perceptions and expectations are measured had negative gaps. This means that the clients expected better service quality than what they received. The service dimension Assurance showed the largest gap, while Tangibility had the smallest gap. However, none of these gaps was practically significant. Further analysis using exploratory factor analysis identified three underlying service quality variables, namely Positive employee actions, Business process management and Marketing channels. These factors explained a favourable cumulative variance of 67.7%. The study finally proposes a model to measure service quality in the pharmaceutical wholesale industry.

Analysis of survival after coronary endarterectomy combined with coronary artery bypass grafting compared with isolated coronary artery bypass grafting: a meta-analysis.

The aim of this analysis was to compare survival outcomes of coronary endarterectomy (CE) combined with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with those of conventional CABG. Eight observational studies were included in this analysis, including 10529 different patients in Asia, Europe and North America, from 1985 to 2012, among whom 1925 underwent CE + CAGB and 8604 underwent conventional CAGB. The follow-up period ranged from 4 to 14 years. This meta-analysis was performed with the fixed-effects model. After rigorous assessment of the quality of the studies included, this analysis showed that CE + CABG had a statistically significant weaker short-term outcome, with a higher risk of mortality [odds ratio (OR)] 1.61; P = 0.002]. Further, this phenomenon was exacerbated in the midterm. One-year and 2-year results indicated that death was, respectively, 163% (OR 2.63; P < 0.001) and 133% (OR 2.60; P < 0.001) more likely to occur in the CE + CABG group. However, the long-term results indicated no difference between the 2 groups. The 4-year hazard ratio (1.13; P = 0.10) did not show significant differences between the groups, and the Kaplan-Meier survival curves had the same level and pattern. CE + CABG had a significantly weaker short-term outcome than conventional CABG, and this trend continued in the midterm. The survival rate had the largest gap in the midterm. However, there was no significant difference between these 2 groups in the long run.

Comparative Study of Marginal Gap Among Zirconium Dioxide, Poly Ethyl Ethyl Ketone and Porcelain Fused to Metal Implant Supported Crowns

Objective: Lifetime and clinical success of implant-supported crown are critically affected by the marginal gap. Marginal misfit may lead to microleakage, cement dissolution accumulation of bacteria, food, and oral debris, potentially causing gingival inflammation and peri-implantitis. The objective of this in vitro study was to compare the marginal gap of crowns made from three different materials.&#x0D; Methods: A shouldered implant abutment was screwed to implant analog and scanned. Computer Aided Design-Computer Aided Manufacturing ( CAD/CAM ) was used to design crown. Zirconium dioxide, Poly ethyl ethyl ketone and porcelain fused to metal were used as materials to fabricate six crowns from each one respectively. Marginal gaps were measured by stereomicroscope at five points for all samples, measurements were recorded using Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 software, and the data were statistically analyzed and subjected to one-way ANOVA and Scheffe post hoc tests (p = 0.05). &#x0D; Results: Mean marginal gaps of Zirconia crown were (786 +/- 794 μm) and for porcelain fused to metal were (883+/- 371μm), both groups were significantly different from Poly Ethyl ethyl ketone (2000 +/-1026 μm) group, but there was no significant difference between Zirconium dioxide and porcelain fused to metal.&#x0D; Conclusions: Within the limitations of this study, it was concluded that although the marginal gaps of the studied implant-supported restorations were in the clinically acceptable range, crowns made from Zirconia provide less marginal gap followed by porcelain fused to the metal crown while PEEK material had the largest gap.

Health systems performance in managing tuberculosis: analysis of tuberculosis care cascades among high-burden and non-high-burden countries.

BackgroundTuberculosis (TB) is a major global health burden, which has been inadequately addressed. This study aims to analyze different patterns and gaps of care along the care cascade across countries and to develop a model to examine the relationship between performance of tuberculosis programmes in high and low burden countries along the tuberculosis care cascade and tuberculosis disease burden.MethodsWe used the World Health Organization’s Global TB Database for the year 2016 to construct tuberculosis care cascade consisting of four steps: incidence, diagnosed, treatment started and treatment completed. Based on the constructed care cascades, we analyzed the relationship between health system performance indicators and tuberculosis cascades performance: diagnosed rate, treatment started rate, and treatment completed rate.ResultsThere are wide differences in access to diagnosis and treatment between high-burden countries and non-high-burden countries. The largest gap was found between incidence and diagnosed rate, with 65% of diagnosed rate for high burden countries and 80% of diagnosed rate for non-high burden countries. We found variations in care performance among high-burden countries. We found a negative relationship between the population health indicators related to the mortality rate and TB care cascade performance. There was a positive relationship between immunization coverage rate and antenatal care indicators and TB care cascade performance.ConclusionsWell-functioning tuberculosis care cascades and effective health systems are important for the successful management of tuberculosis. While improving screening performance is essential for tuberculosis control especially for high-burden countries, resource should be allocated to improve health system performance, which is weak in high-burden countries. Performance of TB programmes across care cascade could be used as a useful tracer to measure performance of health systems.

Scheduling dependent coflows to minimize the total weighted job completion time in datacenters

Datacenter networks are critical to cloud computing. The coflow abstraction is a major leap forward of application-aware network scheduling. In the context of multi-stage jobs, there are dependencies among coflows. As a result, there is a large divergence between coflow-completion-time (CCT) and job-completion-time (JCT). To our best knowledge, this is the first work that systematically studies: how to schedule dependent coflows of multi-stage jobs, so that the total weighted job completion time can be minimized. We present a formal mathematical formulation. Inspired by the optimal solution of the relaxed linear programming, we design an algorithm that runs in polynomial time to solve this problem with an approximation ratio of (2M+1) in general case, and 3 in special case, where M is the number of hosts. Evaluation results demonstrate that, the largest gap between our algorithm and the lower bound is only 9.14%. In testbeds, we reduce the JCT by up to 81.65% comparing with pure DCTCP. In simulations, we reduce the average JCT by up to 33.48% comparing with Aalo, a heuristic multi-stage coflow scheduler; we reduce the total weighted JCT by up to 83.58% comparing with LP-OV-LS, the state-of-the-art approximation algorithm of coflow scheduling.

Fundamental Limits of Cache-Aided Private Information Retrieval With Unknown and Uncoded Prefetching

We consider the problem of private information retrieval (PIR) from N non-colluding and replicated databases when the user is equipped with a cache that holds an uncoded fraction r from each of the K stored messages in the databases. We assume that the databases are unaware of the cache content. We investigate D*(r) the optimal download cost normalized with the message size as a function of K, N, and r. For a fixed K and N, we develop an inner bound (converse bound) for the D*(r) curve. The inner bound is a piece-wise linear function in r that consists of K line segments. For the achievability, we develop explicit schemes that exploit the cached bits as side information to achieve K -1 non-degenerate corner points. These corner points differ in the number of cached bits that are used to generate the one-side information equation. We obtain an outer bound (achievability) for any caching ratio by memory sharing between these corner points. Thus, the outer bound is also a piece-wise linear function in r that consists of K line segments. The inner and the outer bounds match in general for the cases of very low-caching ratio and very high-caching ratio. As a corollary, we fully characterize the optimal download cost caching ratio tradeoff for K = 3. For general K, N, and r, we show that the largest gap between the achievability and the converse bounds is 1/6. Our results show that the download cost can be reduced beyond memory sharing if the databases are unaware of the cached content.

Effect of different CAD-CAM materials on the marginal and internal adaptation of endocrown restorations: An in vitro study

Statement of problemRecent resin-based and ceramic-based computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) materials have been used to restore endodontically treated teeth. Adaptation of the restoration is important for clinical success, but studies evaluating the effect of these materials on the adaptation of endocrowns are lacking. PurposeThe purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of resin-based and ceramic-based materials on the marginal and internal adaptation of endocrowns. Material and methodsForty mandibular molars were divided into 4 groups (n=10); each group was restored with a different CAD-CAM material: group C: hybrid nanoceramic (Cerasmart; GC Corp), group T: fiber-composite material (Trilor; Bioloren Srl), group E: lithium disilicate glass-ceramic (IPS e.max CAD; Ivoclar Vivadent AG), and group V: zirconia-reinforced lithium silicate glass-ceramic (Vita Suprinity; VITA Zahnfabrik GmbH). A digital scan was made with an intraoral digital scanner (TRIOS 3; 3Shape A/S), and endocrowns were milled with a 5-axis milling machine (Coritec 250i; imes-icore GmbH). The replica technique and a stereomicroscope (×70) were used to measure the marginal and internal adaptation of the endocrowns at 32 points. All data were statistically analyzed using 1-way ANOVA and the Tukey honestly significant difference test (α=.05). ResultsStatistical tests showed significant differences among the tested groups (P<.001). The resin-based groups displayed larger discrepancies than the ceramic-based groups. The resin-based groups showed a mean marginal gap larger than the mean internal gap C (P=.009), T (P<.001), whereas the ceramic-based groups showed similar gaps, V (P=.396), E (P=.936). The largest gap was observed at the pulpal floor (P<.001). ConclusionsAll materials had clinically acceptable internal and marginal gaps (≤150 μm), except for the marginal gap of the Trilor group.

Análise de importância e desempenho das ferramentas de gerenciamento de projetos em agroindústria

O estudo tem por objetivo avaliar ferramentas que auxiliam as empresas no gerenciamento de projetos, verificando sua importância e desempenho pelo grau de utilização. A pesquisa se trata de survey case, realizada em uma agroindústria, que mantém rotinas de gerenciamento de projetos. A amostra é composta por gerentes de unidades e membros de suas equipes, que possuem ligação a gerenciamento de projetos. Para medir a confiabilidade das respostas utilizou-se Alfa de Cronbach e, a Correlação de Pearson para verificar as relações das variáveis. A Importance-Performance Matrix, de Slack (1994), foi utilizada para apontar as ferramentas que ficaram no quadrante “zona de urgência”, ou seja, com maior importância e menor desempenho. Os resultados indicam que houve significância nas variáveis aquisição com riscos e integração, comunicação com recursos humanos e conhecimento com integração. A pesquisa demonstra, pela ótica dos gestores, as ferramentas com menor e maior lacuna entre o grau de desempenho, por meio da utilização, e da importância mesmo que não seja utilizada na sua rotina de trabalho, entre os grupos de identificação. O método pode ser utilizado em empresas que gerenciam seus projetos por meio de ferramentas, identificando onde é necessário alocar maior e menor investimento em seus processos, seja em ferramentas ou em pessoal.

Live-fly experimentation for pigeon-inspired obstacle avoidance of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles

In this paper, we applied a pigeon-inspired obstacle-avoidance model to the flight of quadrotor UAVs through environments with obstacles. Pigeons bias their flight direction by considering the largest gap and minimum required steering. Owing to the similarities between pigeon flocks and UAV swarms in terms of mission requirements, the pigeon-inspired obstacle-avoidance model is used to control a UAV swarm so that it can fly through a complex environment with multiple obstacles. The simulation and flight results illustrate the viability and superiority of pigeon-inspired obstacle avoidance for quadrotor UAVs.