Opening Hours Research Articles

Mass production methods for mass vaccination: improving flow and operational performance in a COVID-19 mass vaccination centre using Lean

The COVID-19 pandemic has infected tens of millions of people worldwide causing many deaths. Healthcare systems have been stretched caring for the most seriously ill and lockdown measures to interrupt...

Sunday Trading Ban in Poland: Reflection After Three Years

Purpose: The paper examines two perspectives of shopping hours regulations, the theoretical background, and experiences from selected European countries. Particular focus is on the Sunday trading ban that took effect in Poland in 2018. It was implemented gradually over three years. However, determining the impact of the introduction of the restriction on the economy is a tough challenge, both for science and the business community. This is mainly due to dynamic economic challenges, innovations implemented in retailing, which significantly change the way services are delivered. The paper aims to provide an overview of international experience, which may help understand the possible impact of Sunday trading regulations. The theoretical discussion and international empirical evidence show that the dynamics involved in changing Sunday trading rules can work in different directions. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper presents international experiences of shopping hours regulations and focuses on the Polish market's case study. Findings: The analysis showed that regulations on opening hours and Sunday trading ban on the economy and retail sector are mixed and uncertain. In Poland, the effects of the Sunday trading ban are not possible due to the consequences of the COVID pandemic (20202021) and additional restrictions in economic activity that were introduced. Practical Implications: Two years after introducing restrictions on Sunday trade in Poland, structural and qualitative changes in retailing are observed. The author argues that these changes will result from the COVID pandemic and the implications of innovative retail processes are to be expected soon. They will be mainly targeted at the use of online commerce, the development of unattended sales forms, and possibly reducing the importance of large-scale retail outlets. Originality/Value: The author points out that the relationship between these regulations and innovations in trade should be added to the traditional approach to the analysis of trade working hours regulation. In this sense, the article has the value of a new, original analysis..

Epidemiological and clinical features of Spanish flu in the city of Ferrara and in Italy. Containment rules and health measures adopted in the past to fight the pandemic.

The "Spanish" flu has often been described as the "Greatest Medical Holocaust in History" and most victims were young and healthy. In Italy, as elsewhere, this pandemic influenza struck in three successive and close waves with incredible speed in a very short time. The virus first arrived in a few Italian regions and gripped the country in an epidemic clamp. When the flu hit Ferrara, the health authorities began to claim that it was no more or less like the same disease that Ferrara had also experienced in the 19th century, although the population was not very willing to believe them. Moreover, the control measures were considered by all to be extremely mild, varying only the opening hours of cinemas and pharmacies and forbidding spitting on the ground; there was no disinfection of stores and streets and the dead were left at home for three days, unlike in larger cities. In 1918-19, Ferrara did much to contain the devastating effects of the war, especially in terms of saving lives. The largest Red Cross unit in Italy, later called Ospedale Nuovo, was built. Moreover, since Ferrara was the first hospital evacuation zone, it was necessary to build other hospitals in the city's schools in addition to the already existing ones, including the famous Ospedale Militare Neurologico di Villa Seminario, which was the first Italian neurological hospital of the Great War for veterans of the front line, intended for the specialised treatment of nervous disorders and psychosis caused by the war or by bombs. We have extracted the cases of death from the Register of Deaths of the Municipality of Ferrara. During the period January 1918 - June 1919, in addition to the number of deaths due to influenza, grippe or Spanish flu we also considered influenza-related complications affecting mortality and identified seven main groups of diseases by grouping them according to morbid forms and anatomical location. According to these criteria, 1,059 deaths were attributable to influenza or related causes during January-December 1918. This partly reflects the excess of deaths in the year 1918 of 1,279 over the average for the years 1916-1919, and 1920. The largest number of deaths was attributable to bronchopneumonia and pneumonia. However, an increase in mortality from other infectious diseases such as typhoid ileus, tuberculosis, malaria and smallpox was observed during the same period until January 2019, making up the shortfall in the total number of deaths recorded.

Time-varying accessibility to senior centers by public transit in Philadelphia

Public transit offers older adults an important alternative travel mode for accessing social activity destinations. Given the growing size and socioeconomic diversity of the older population, transportation planners should consider how current urban transit systems can better meet their needs. In this study, we examine the time-varying accessibility to senior centers by public transit in each census tract of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Senior centers are community service and activity hubs for older adults which are typically overseen by the local area agency on aging. They offer a variety of services and social activities for older adults, including free meals, volunteering opportunities, information, and technology training. Using General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data and socioeconomic data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we analyze how accessibility varies across census tracts with respect to the tract's share of older adults, particularly those in vulnerable subgroups. We found that accessibility to senior centers declines from the downtown area to the suburbs but varies considerably among the vulnerable subgroups studied. We also found that when accounting for the open hours of senior centers, accessibility to senior centers is generally lower around midday (2 PM) than during peak hours (8:30 AM) on Mondays. We used the vertical equity index to examine social disparities in accessibility among older adults. We found that while SEPTA underserves neighborhoods with higher shares of older adults, tracts with higher shares of some vulnerable subgroups are better served than those with lower shares. Specifically, neighborhoods with higher shares of households that have no cars are better served than those with higher shares of African American and Hispanic older adults. These results suggest that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) and the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA) should work together to better accommodate the diverse travel needs of older adults.

Pharmacy practice in emergency response during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons from Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the pharmacy practice and initiatives taken by the Australian federal government to ensure the continued supply of essential medicines under the conditions of an emergency response plan for COVID-19. During the pandemic, Australian pharmacists have been working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams at the frontline to manage the equitable and safe supply of medicines despite the unprecedented situation. Although these presented problems for small pharmacies, social distancing policies were implemented widely to maintain personal and environmental hygiene and reduce the number of face-to-face patient visits. In collaboration with various pharmaceutical stakeholders, the Australian government responded rapidly to ensure equitable and sufficient supply with continued access to therapeutic goods during the pandemic. Additionally, vital policies and practices have been implemented, including supplying regular medicines at government-subsidized prices, a maximum one-month supply of some prescription medicines and purchase limits on over-the-counter medicines (one unit per purchase), medication management reviews through telehealth, electronic and digital prescribing, home delivery of medicines to vulnerable people and those in home isolation and the provision of serious shortage medicine substitution rights to pharmacists. Pharmacists were encouraged to communicate and collaborate with other local pharmacies to ensure that essential pharmacy services met community needs (e.g., opening hours). However, there has been a shortage of some medicines due to supply chain disruption and increased demand due to the pandemic. Higher demand for flu vaccinations, increased work pressure in pharmacies, and severe frustration and anxiety in pharmacy customers were also reported. Vigilance is required to monitor foreseeable shortages of therapeutics goods, particularly in regional pharmacies. There is an opportunity for long-term change to retain certain rights and roles based on the competence shown by pharmacists in this challenging period, such as telephone medication reviews, telehealth for MedsCheck and Diabetes MedsCheck, digital prescription handling and therapeutic substitution.

Stakeholders’ Perspectives on the Barriers to Accessing Health Care Services in Rural Settings: A Human Capabilities Approach

Background:Despite efforts to achieve universal access to health care by various stakeholders globally, most developing countries continue to face serious health delivery challenges, especially in rural areas.Introduction:These inhibit individuals and communities’ ability to obtain health care services when needed and the freedom to use health care. Although issues of access to health care have been widely researched in South Africa, a detailed account on access to health care in particular communities is necessary for developing interventions that are tailored to the specific needs of that community. Understanding the accounts of stakeholders to the perceived barriers to access to health care services can help comprehend the issues that hinder people from accessing health care. Therefore, this study explored the stakeholders’ perspectives on the barriers to accessing health care services in rural settings in South Africa.Methods:A qualitative approach was used to guide the collection and analysis of the data. Data were collected from a sample of stakeholders selected from three rural areas in South Africa and analysed through thematic analysis. According to the stakeholders interviewed, there are some barriers that exist in the community that impede access to health.Reusults:These are limited or lack of health care facilities and personnel, shortages of medicine, distrust in the health care providers, opening hours of health care facilities and financial constraints, which resulted in the perceived poor health status of the people in those rural areas.Conclusion:This study calls for multifaceted health care reforms and strategies to address infrastructure deficiencies, human resources and medicine shortages to ensure equitable provision of high-quality public services. These strategies or measures must be tailored to the specific needs of rural communities.

Modeling Activity-Time to Build Realistic Plannings in Population Synthesis in a Suburban Area

In their daily activity planning, travelers always considers time and space constraints such as working or education hours and distances to facilities that can restrict the location and time-of-day choices of other activities. In the field of population synthesis, current demand models lack dynamic consistency and often fail to capture the angle of activity choices at different times of the day. This article presents a method for synthetic population generation with a focus on activity-time choice. Activity-time choice consists mainly in the activity’s starting time and its duration, and we consider daily planning with some mandatory home-based activity: the chain of other subsequent activities a traveler can participate in depends on their possible end-time and duration as well as the travel distance from one another and opening hours of commodities. We are interested in a suburban area with sparse data available on population, where a discrete choice model based on utilities cannot be implemented due to the lack of microeconomic data. Our method applies activity-hours distributions extracted from the public census, with a limited corpus, to draw the time of a potential next activity based on the end-time of the previous one, predicted travel times, and the successor activities the agent wants to participate in during the day. We show that our method is able to construct plannings for 126k agents over five municipalities, with chains of activity made of work, education, shopping, leisure, restaurant and kindergarten, which fit adequately real-world time distributions.

Better in Pictures

Better in Pictures

Geographic and Temporal Access to Basic Banking Services Offered through Post Offices in Wales

Access to ‘universal banking services’ through the post office network has been a goal of the UK governments over the last twenty years. Various policies and mechanisms have been put in place in an attempt to maintain national geographical coverage with access points while increasing the financial viability of the network. One such mechanism is represented by the six official criteria for access to post offices, expressed as a percentage of the UK population living within one mile, three miles, and six miles of a post office. The method for calculating compliance with these access criteria is not published. Nor will any granular results be published, but only an annual statement that the criteria are being met. This article examines geographical and temporal access to post offices in order to understand the territorial coverage of the network and the impact this has on the provision of basic banking services. The area under investigation is Wales, for which we are reviewing the Government’s official access criteria. Through the Post Office Ltd website, we are collecting up-to-date information on the locations and opening hours of post offices in Wales. In addition, a detailed population grid is combined with calculated areas of equidistant geographical access, called isochrones, to determine the number of people who have access to the post office network. The isochrones are based on the Welsh road network and are calculated for different travel modes and thresholds using a powerful routing engine. Our results show that the official access criteria are largely unmet in Wales. In addition, and in contrast to previous studies, we show a rural-urban divide not in terms of spatial access, but in the combination of spatial and temporal access. The results are of both practical and theoretical value and will hopefully inform policy makers.

An Exploration of Ireland’s My Open Library Service

ABSTRACT Ireland’s recently implemented My Open Library (MOL) service is operating in 15 public libraries following initial trials in 2014. MOL consists of the provision of extended opening hours during which no library staff are present. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight librarians from seven public libraries operating MOL to understand the uses and challenges of MOL. The findings show MOL’s popularity, user demographics, uses, staff absence, health and safety concerns, automated systems, increased workload, investment, expansion and improvements. This research has implications for key stakeholders of MOL as it provides an original contribution of practical value within the context of the government’s plans for expansion of the service. The findings also increase understandings of MOL and highlight recommendations as to how stakeholders may improve, expand and develop this socially significant public service. Future research can examine user demographics and preferences, the requirement for security guards during MOL hours and the concepts of equal access and expansion.

Analysis and monitoring of post-COVID mobility demand in Rome resulting from the adoption of sustainable mobility measures

The paper describes research activities of monitoring, modeling, and planning of people mobility in Rome during the Covid-19 epidemic period from March to June 2020. The results of data collection for different transport modes (walking, bicycle, car, and transit) are presented and analyzed. A specific focus is provided for the subway mass transit, where 1 m interpersonal distancing is required to prevent the risks for Covid-19 contagion together with the use of masks and gloves. A transport system model has been calibrated on the data collected during the lockdown period –when people's behavior significantly changed because of smart-working adoption and contagion fear– and was applied to predict future mobility scenarios under different assumptions on economic activities restarting. Based on the estimations of passenger loading, a timing policy that differentiates the opening hours of the shops depending on their commercial category was implemented, and an additional bus transit service was introduced to avoid incompatible loads of the subway lines with the required interpersonal distancing.

Patients satisfaction with healthcare delivery in Ghana

BackgroundThe service industry has been an evolving sector and a great concern to providers ensuring continuously that clients’ satisfaction is met. Hence, the importance of patient satisfaction in the healthcare sector. This study focused on the satisfaction of women with the delivery of health services in Ghana and aims to be different from other studies which has focused on patient satisfaction with urban and rural health services, regional health services and health insurance. Our study examines the percentages of satisfaction with the multiple outcomes defined and identifies the key health system and demographic related factors associated with women satisfaction.MethodsThis study used data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey and a total of 12,831 households were systematically selected with reproductive women aged 15–49 years eligible for interview. Data for this study was analysed quantitatively using descriptive statistics, chi square and regression analysis. A total of 3648 women were included in this study and the final analysis thus involved a weighted sample of 3507 women. Satisfaction indicators were put together into SERVQUAL dimensions in the study and reliability test run using Cronbach Alpha (α). All data analyses were carried out in STATA 13.0. The adjusted odds ratios (AOR) with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated.ResultsAnalysis showed that independently, education and religion were significantly associated with service reliability, overall satisfaction and responsiveness. Payment option was also associated with responsiveness and tangibility dimensions. Furthermore, place of residence was independently associated with responsiveness, tangibility and overall satisfaction. Finally, maternal age, region, provider friendly, ease of getting care and opening hours were all independently associated with reliability, responsiveness, tangibility and overall service satisfaction at the multivariable level.ConclusionsDimensions of service quality which focus on patient-centered atmosphere and efficient service delivery system should be integrated and strengthened by hospital management in order to increase patient satisfaction. Key maternal characteristics and health system related factors were revealed to have positive association with patient satisfaction with health services delivery and this cannot be ignored by health care managers in ensuring that systems are improved for better health care.

Burn Out and Depression of Employees Who Worked in Essential Supply Stores during the Pandemic Covid -19

The global COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected people's lives, created many challenges and impacted many areas, including health, work, education, the economy and social welfare. The restrictive measures imposed to control and deal with the pandemic were many and at many different levels. Because of these measures, the majority of people were forced to stay indoors, isolated, without their daily activities, with very specific movements and with a lot of free time. On the other hand, there was a part of the population that continued to work (such as doctors, nurses, and workers in the shops of essential goods) and even in very difficult conditions. The employees in the supermarkets in particular faced a significant difficulty, since on the one hand the opening hours of the supermarkets were extended and on the other hand they were in daily contact with many different people, so they also had to manage their fear of being exposed to the virus. The present study examines the burnout and depression of workers in grocery stores during the pandemic. Specifically, the stores in which the survey was conducted were two large supermarkets of the SKLAVENITIS chain in the area of ​​Elefsina and Psychiko in the Prefecture of Attica and it appeared that the employees showed moderate emotional exhaustion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Extending alcohol retailers’ opening hours: Evidence from Sweden

Excessive alcohol use is associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes that inflict large societal costs. This paper investigates the impacts of increases in regulated opening hours of Swedish alcohol retailers on alcohol purchases, health and crime outcomes by relating changes in these outcomes in municipalities that increased their retail opening hours to those in municipalities whose opening hours remained unchanged. We show that extended opening hours led to statistically and economically significant increases in alcohol purchases by around two percent per weekly opening hour, but find no corresponding increases in adverse outcomes related to the consumption of alcohol. We study potential mechanisms, such as consumption spillovers and on and off-premise substitution, and we discuss policy implications of our findings.

Call and Response: The Narrative Politics of Precedent and Structure in Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates

Author(s): Magee, Liam | Abstract: As the oldest surviving film by an African American director, Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1920) has been the object of considerable curiosity as both a historical artifact and a formative work of Black art. Of particular interest is the densely intertextual nature of the film’s narrative, which takes substantial cues from many tropes common to race fiction of the early twentieth century. This is perhaps most clearly evidenced by the film’s opening hour, which plays out as a nearly exact specimen of the racial uplift stories that dominated the era’s Black literary scene, and by its final five minutes, which clearly replicate the marriage plots that defined contemporary women’s literature. Crucially, these allusions—and, more importantly, the optimistic racial and socioeconomic philosophies they entail—are complicated by the presence of a late flashback sequence whose traumatic contents, rife with brutal racial and sexual violence, seem diametrically at odds with the idealism that defines the rest of the film. This paper investigates this seemingly problematic tonal disjunction by seeking to examine the flashback in its proper narratological context, exploring its aesthetic roots in mediums as diverse as newsprint, novels, and lynch photography, in order to better understand the ways in which the flashback’s inclusion modifies—or even challenges—the film’s dramatic thesis. The argument is finally made that the flashback’s disruptive nature is in fact its greatest strength, generating a complex interrogation of the platitudinous narrative archetypes that define both the remainder of the film and the race literature of Micheaux’s time.

The effectiveness of mobility control, shortening of restaurants' opening hours, and working from home on control of COVID-19 spread in Japan.

Since the first outbreak of COVID-19, various interventions have been implemented to prevent the global spread of the virus. Using an agent-based model that describes the attributes and mobility of the Japanese population, the present research evaluates the effectiveness of mobility control, shortening of restaurants' opening hours, and working from home. Results show that early and severe mobility control that restricts 90% of domestic travel decreases the peak cases by 40%, compared to no intervention implementation. Mobility control that only limits movement to and from highly populated regions is as effective as nationwide travel restrictions. Furthermore, shortening of restaurants’ opening hours is the most effective intervention in a state of emergency; it should be utilized even after the emergency. However, working from home has comparatively limited effects.

Web System Reactiva TEC

This article presents the development and application of a web system that allows the registration of data from small businesses, in order to publicize their products and services, as well as their opening hours, type of payment received, location, social networks and telephone. There are three types of users: the administrator, the business owner, and the customer. The SCRUM methodology is applied for its development. Only the Execution and Adaptation phases will be presented in this article. In addition, its improvements and application in businesses in the San Martín Texmelucan región are visualized, an MVC architecture (Model-View-Controller) and free development technologies were used.

Вдосконалення моделі управління університетськими стадіонами та спортивними залами в Китайській провінції Хенань

Introduction. The opening of university stadiums and gymnasiums to public can alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand of mass fitness service and improve the allocation of university sports resources. It also has the function of promoting the reform of college physical education and improving its popularity. Purpose. The current management model of university stadiums and gymnasiums in Henan province is relatively backward, and the lack of management talents and management funds restricts the scale and efficiency of the opening of stadiums. The purpose of the article is to outline general problems in the management mode of university stadiums and gymnasiums in Henan province and provide possible solutions. Results. To meet the needs of daily teaching, it is also necessary to meet the needs of marketization of sports venues with the opening of college sports venues. This puts forward higher requirements for the construction, reconstruction, expansion, maintenance, security and service of the stadiums. This requires a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, and will greatly increase the operation and management costs of college sports venues. However, the current provincial financial support is the main source of capital investment required for the operation and management of college sports venues in Henan Province, in addition to the school's self-raised funds. Due to the relatively low proportion of college sports funds in the provincial education funds, the investment in the construction and maintenance of stadiums is insufficient. The income-generating ability of universities is also limited, so the sports funds of most universities cannot meet the financial needs. The management mode of university stadiums and gymnasiums mainly includes four categories: independent university management mode, contract management mode, entrusted management mode and corporate management mode. Independent university management mode lacks management flexibility. Contract management mode can improve the utilization rate of stadiums; however, the cost of venue maintenance will increase. Under this mode, ownership and management are separated. Entrusted management mode had smaller degree of separation between ownership and management. Corporate management mode requires higher management level. At present, many universities in Henan Province mainly adopt the self-management model which has certain limitations. Therefore, it should be supplemented by the introduction of the other three models and be further compatible with modern Internet technology. As a result, a completely new model of opening up management is developed. Conclusions. To diversify current management models and establish a "people-oriented" management concept universities in Henan Province should appropriately introduce market models such as entrusted operation, contracted operation and corporate operation on the basis of independent management. More professional service concepts will be introduced to improve service awareness and adapt to changing market requirements through cooperation with society and enterprises. Appropriate market research on and off campus should be conducted before the venue is open.. On the basis of fully considering the needs of consumers, combined with the actual situation of universities, reasonable opening methods, opening facilities, opening hours, opening prices, and number of exercisers of sports venues can be determined. Finally, service-oriented modern management concept will be established. In this way, the dual goal of improving the quality of physical education in schools and taking into account long-term benefits can be achieved.

COVID-19: a crisis of the female self-employed

We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic and the government-mandated measures to contain its spread affect the self-employed — particularly women — in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are about one-third more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. We do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, e.g., the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship.

Modeling indoor-level non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pedestrian dynamics-based microscopic simulation approach

Mathematical modeling of epidemic spreading has been widely adopted to estimate the threats of epidemic diseases (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic) as well as to evaluate epidemic control interventions. The indoor place is considered to be a significant epidemic spreading risk origin, but existing widely-used epidemic spreading models are usually limited for indoor places since the dynamic physical distance changes between people are ignored, and the empirical features of the essential and non-essential travel are not differentiated. In this paper, we introduce a pedestrian-based epidemic spreading model that is capable of modeling indoor transmission risks of diseases during people's social activities. Taking advantage of the before-and-after mobility data from the University of Maryland COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform, it's found that people tend to spend more time in grocery stores once their travel frequencies are restricted to a low level. In other words, an increase in dwell time could balance the decrease in travel frequencies and satisfy people's demands. Based on the pedestrian-based model and the empirical evidence, combined non-pharmaceutical interventions from different operational levels are evaluated. Numerical simulations show that restrictions on people's travel frequency and open hours of indoor places may not be universally effective in reducing average infection risks for each pedestrian who visit the place. Entry limitations can be a widely effective alternative, whereas the decision-maker needs to balance the decrease in risky contacts and the increase in queue length outside the place that may impede people from fulfilling their travel needs. The results show that a good coordination among the decision-makers can contribute to the improvement of the performance of combined non-pharmaceutical interventions, and it also benefits the short-term and long-term interventions in the future.