Practical Evaluation Method Research Articles

The Challenge of Evaluating Virtual Communities of Practice: A Systematic Mapping Study

Aim/Purpose: This paper presents a study of Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP) evaluation methods that aims to identify their current status and impact on knowledge sharing. The purposes of the study are as follows: (i) to identify trends and research gaps in VCoP evaluation methods; and, (ii) to assist researchers to position new research activities in this domain. Background: VCoP have become a popular knowledge sharing mechanism for both individuals and organizations. Their evaluation process is complex; however, it is recognized as an essential means to provide evidences of community effectiveness. Moreover, VCoP have introduced additional features to face to face Communities of Practice (CoP) that need to be taken into account in evaluation processes, such as geographical dispersion. The fact that VCoP rely on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to execute their practices as well as storing artifacts virtually makes more consistent data analysis possible; thus, the evaluation process can apply automatic data gathering and analysis. Methodology: A systematic mapping study, based on five research questions, was carried out in order to analyze existing studies about VCoP evaluation methods and frameworks. The mapping included searching five research databases resulting in the selection of 1,417 papers over which a formal analysis process was applied. This process led to the preliminary selection of 39 primary studies for complete reading. After reading them, we select 28 relevant primary studies from which data was extracted and synthesized to answer the proposed research questions. Contribution: The authors of the primary studies analyzed along this systematic mapping propose a set of methods and strategies for evaluating VCoP, such as frameworks, processes and maturity models. Our main contribution is the identification of some research gaps present in the body of studies, in order to stimulate projects that can improve VCoP evaluation methods and support its important role in social learning. Findings: The systematic mapping led to the conclusion that most of the approaches for VCoP evaluation do not consider the combination of data structured and unstructured metrics. In addition, there is a lack of guidelines to support community operators’ actions based on evaluation metrics.

Optimization of analysis methods for Astragali Radix and quality evaluation of standard decoction of Astragali Radix

Astragali Radix is commonly used as bulk medicinal materials. Chinese Pharmacopoeia contains about 150 compound preparations of Astragali Radix, but the sample preparation method under the determination of Astragali Radix content in Chinese Pharmacopoeia is tedious and time-consuming, not convenient for the test of a large number of samples. Therefore, it is of great significance to simplify the sample preparation method and improve the practicability of the method for the quality control of Astragali Radix and its preparations. In this study, ultrasonic extraction method was used instead of heated reflux extraction, and solid phase extraction method was used to enrich and prepare the samples. A set of practical quality evaluation method was established for Astragali Radix slices and standard decoction, greatly shortening the sample preparation time and improving the accuracy of the method. The results of Astragali Radix standard decoction analysis showed that the transfer rate of calycosin 7-O-β-D-glucospyranoside,(96.5±28.7)%, had great variation, which was found to be related to the conversion of mulberry isoflavone glucoside into calycosin 7-O-β-D-glucospyranoside during the preparation of standard decoction. The transfer rates were(59.4±14.4)% and(101.3±12.3)% for calycosin and astragaloside Ⅳ respectively, which were relatively stable. Therefore, it is suggested that Astragali Radix slices and water decoction preparations should be evaluated by using calycosin and astragaloside Ⅳ as the quality evaluation index. The results provide a scientific and practical method for quality control of Astragali Radix slices and its standard decoction, and also provide scientific evidence for quality evaluation of the preparations.

Impact of Shale Anisotropy on Seismic Wavefield

During unconventional resources exploration, ignoring shale anisotropy may lead to wrong seismic interpretations, thus affecting the accuracy and credibility of sweet spots prediction and reservoir characterization. In order to investigate the impact of shale anisotropy on the seismic wavefield, we propose a quantitative evaluation method by calculating the waveforms’ amplitude and phase deviations. Based on the 3D elastic wave equation and the staggered-grid finite-difference method, the forward modeling theory with the consideration of shale anisotropy is established. Then, we use the envelope misfit (EM) and phase misfit (PM) parameters to illustrate the differences in waveforms’ amplitude and phase morphology, which are caused by anisotropy. Lastly, by comparing the waveforms of the models with/without anisotropy and calculating their EM and PM values, a practical and quantitative evaluation method is constructed. We used synthetic models of different complexity and oilfield models to validate the proposed method. Through the research, we also gained some new insights about the anisotropy’s effects. For a certain medium model, the impact of shale anisotropy on seismic wavefield is complicated and needs specific analysis. The proposed method provides a useful and quantitative tool for the evaluation of shale anisotropy’s impact.

Evaluating the oil production and wastewater treatment efficiency by an extended two-stage network structure model with feedback variables

Oil is an indispensable and important energy source in modern society, and oil production plays a vital role in economic development. However, there is no denying that oil production has a very bad impact on the environment. To realize the sustainable development of oil production, the environmental problems caused by oil production need to be controlled and managed strictly. Aiming at the practical problems of insufficient recoverable reserves of high quality oil and aggravating environmental pollution, efficient oil production and wastewater treatment become more and more important. Therefore, the whole system is divided into two stages. The stage 1 is oil development, and the stage 2 is wastewater treatment. Considering that the model needs to solve the undesirable output, an extended two-stage Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) network structure model with a feedback variable is established. The efficiency value of each stage can be obtained, and the weakness of each stage can be identified, so that the efficiency value of the whole system is more accurate. And then thirteen oilfields are selected for the numerical analysis to verify the validity and accuracy of the proposed model, the results demonstrate that the overall system is efficient only if the two stages are efficient; the oil production has higher efficiencies than the oilfield wastewater treatment; There is a stronger relationship between the efficiency of oilfield wastewater treatment and the whole system. A comparison with a traditional model demonstrated that the proposed model has a more scientific, stable and practical evaluation methods.

Repeatability of Colour Matching Tests using Psychophysical Methods.

The researcher working in the field of illumination can use a number of measurement methods, depending on the requirement. Many practical evaluation methods employ varieties of a configuration where test stations are positioned next to or opposite each other for comparison purposes. Test stations can consist of test booths or even full-sized test rooms when using indoor evaluations. The number of test booths for indoor application may differ from one to three. Most colour and light perception studies thus depend on human observers to provide some feedback or input. It is the human observer who uses illumination devices and it is important that human response to these products be measured. Results achieved from these measurements can, in turn, be used by the lighting designer to optimize the design of illumination products. Many studies in the field of colour perception and/or matching rely on the method of “psychophysics” where humans are used. Reliability of results achieved when using human observers can be questioned. Results achieved with psychometric testing cannot be compared with an established benchmark and/or standard as such a benchmark was itself generated using human observers, endangering the researchers to become entangled in a closed circle of cause and effect where one depends on the other. This study investigated the reliability of human observers when studying colour perception. Repeatability of results achieved when using human observers was measured. A test was repeated using the same set of observers. Even this approach is not safe as human memory may serve the observer so well, that results can be selected, or at least influenced, on the basis of memory and not perception. The solution was to implement extended time between measurements, thereby hoping that sufficient time will lapse to erase details from the observer’s memory. A colour matching task had to be completed to test observers of two distinct age groups. One group was older than 50 years of age and the second group was younger than 40 years of age. The two groups were tasked to complete the same colour matching test at the beginning of a year and after one year. Test procedures and test equipment were identical before and after the year.

Decision-making model for the evaluation of industrialized housing systems in Ethiopia

Purpose The industrialized housing system (IHS) is regarded as an effective building philosophy based on off-site construction techniques to achieve rapid and cost-effective housing development. The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-criteria decision-making support system (DMSS) model for the evaluation of housing systems to select the relevant decision factors and to identify the types and characteristics of suitable IHSs for application in a mass housing development. Design/methodology/approach A multi-criteria DMSS model with the analytical hierarchy process was designed. Based on the literature review and also the response of the ten experts’ interviews, 30 decision factors were identified for evaluation. In addition, 5 IHSs were considered as a case study for testing the model. Then, 30 professionals participated in a questionnaire survey conducted to evaluate the priority vector importance level of the decision factors and housing systems. Findings The result of the decision-making process showed that the top three decision factors are customer needs, supply chain and the construction industry. In addition, both precast concrete beam and slab blocks, as well as agro stone panels are identified as suitable housing systems. The systems have the characteristics of being lightweight, easy to produce and erect, and cost-effective, and they use local input resources and semi-skilled labor. The findings also revealed the potential and practicality of the model among multiple alternatives across multiple decision factors. Research limitations/implications The study has faced the limitations of available professionals and experts who have rich experience in the application of IHSs. In addition, there were few types of alternative IHSs and limited practice of IHSs implementation in large-scale housing construction. These challenges caused limitations to the relevant data collection. In order to address these challenges, all the available experts from the different sectors of the construction industry with the experience of IHSs construction are invited to participate and the available alternative IHSs in the market are selected for evaluation. Practical implications The rational evaluation method used to determine the important decision factors and the general characteristics of the suitable housing systems can help housing developers and decision makers in developing countries to make informed and effective decisions. Social implications The findings of the study help to address the challenge of lack of sufficient housing supply to the overwhelming housing demand that exists and identify the most important decision factors and suitable housing systems that can be applied for the rapid and decent large-scale housing developments at an affordable price. Originality/value This paper bridges the knowledge gaps that exist regarding the identification and evaluation of IHSs in Ethiopia. This study can help practitioners, housing developers, and decision makers to make informed and effective decisions regarding the evaluation and selection of IHSs.

Clinical Implications

Clinical Implications

Non-destructive evaluation of thermally grown oxides in thermal barrier coatings using impedance spectroscopy

The growth of thermally grown oxide (TGO) layers in thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) due to the oxidation of the bondcoat alloy is a critical factor affecting the durability of TBCs. In the present study, diverse TBC specimens were subjected to long-term oxidation at various temperatures. The TGO growth mechanism was investigated according to cross-sectional images of the oxidized specimens. Impedance spectroscopy (IS) was performed to measure the electrical properties of the integrated TBCs non-destructively. Considering the influence of the TGO composition, the derived TGO electrical capacitance was found to have a good correspondence to the observed TGO thickness over a wide range 0–18.3 μm, regardless of the diverse specimens and oxidation conditions. The error was less than ±2.0 μm. With a certain design of the electrode size, IS is generalized and is recommended as an accurate and practical non-destructive evaluation method for the determination of TGO thickness within a very wide range in TBC systems under real operating conditions.

A compensation approach of LED nonlinearity based on efficiency evaluation in a visible light communication system

In this work, a practical efficiency evaluation method for InGaN-based LEDs is deduced, in which the internal quantum efficiency and output light power–injection current (L–I) curves can be reconstructed by the injected current I0 corresponding to the peak quantum efficiency, a given injected current I1 and the corresponding light output power ratio r. There is good agreement between the calculated result using the proposed method and measured L–I result using the integral sphere system. On this basis, the pre-distortion and post-mitigation is realized for the DC-biased orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) system. It is demonstrated that the bit error rate (BER) performance of the visible light communication (VLC) system with pre-distortion is much better than the original system even if the estimated I0 and r values are not very accurate. Furthermore, using adaptive post-mitigation based on the proposed LED evaluation method, the performance of VLC system can also be improved obviously.

Regularizing Output Distribution of Abstractive Chinese Social Media Text Summarization for Improved Semantic Consistency

Abstractive text summarization is a highly difficult problem, and the sequence-to-sequence model has shown success in improving the performance on the task. However, the generated summaries are often inconsistent with the source content in semantics. In such cases, when generating summaries, the model selects semantically unrelated words with respect to the source content as the most probable output. The problem can be attributed to heuristically constructed training data, where summaries can be unrelated to the source content, thus containing semantically unrelated words and spurious word correspondence. In this article, we propose a regularization approach for the sequence-to-sequence model and make use of what the model has learned to regularize the learning objective to alleviate the effect of the problem. In addition, we propose a practical human evaluation method to address the problem that the existing automatic evaluation method does not evaluate the semantic consistency with the source content properly. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which outperforms almost all the existing models. Especially, the proposed approach improves the semantic consistency by 4% in terms of human evaluation.

Peripheral blood test provides a practical method for glioma evaluation and prognosis prediction.

SummaryObjectiveTo investigate the relationship between tumor characteristics and the preoperative counts of immune cells in peripheral blood test in glioma patients.MethodsWe included 260 WHO grades II‐IV patients who had preoperative peripheral blood test result from Sanbo hospital as training set. The 66 patients from Tiantan hospital was obtained for validation. RNA sequencing data from CGGA and TCGA datasets were used to evaluate the features of neutrophil subtype and lymphocyte subtype in glioma.ResultsWe revealed that the count of preoperative lymphocytes, eosinophils and neutrophils were associated with glioma grades. Neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) <3.2 was associated with better prognosis, whereas increased NLR was strongly corresponding with a poor prognosis. Lymphocyte type glioma patients demonstrated a positive correlation with isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutation and lower grade. IDH mutant glioma contained a higher proportion of tumor‐infiltrating lymphocytes than IDH wild‐type glioma. The immune subtype (neutrophil subtype and lymphocyte subtype) was an independent prognostic factor in glioma.ConclusionOur data demonstrated that NLR was an important prognostic factor in glioma. We classified that the immune subtype of glioma may contribute to a better understanding of disease pathogenesis and lead to the identification of new therapeutic targets for glioma patients.

Practice and Effect of Specialized High Quality Nursing Care in Operating Room

This study aimed to explore the practical effect and reasonable evaluation methods of specialized high quality nursing care in operating room. Stratified random sampling was used to select 93 nurses from the operating rooms of two affiliated hospitals of Kunming Medical University in Yunnan Province. A set of “Specialized High Quality Nursing Care Items in Operating Room” was implemented in the operating rooms of the two hospitals simultaneously. The “Task Performance and Contextual Performance Scale” was used to measure and collect data of nurses in operating room before and after the implementation of the items. After the “Specialized High Quality Nursing Care Items in Operating Room” was implemented, the task performance total score and dimension scores of patient care, nursing information provision and specialized nursing skills were (58.59±1.77), (19.27±1.16), (19.50±1.11), (19.80±0.70), respectively, higher than the respective scores (37.21±1.92), (5.55±0.70), (13.78±1.12), (17.87±0.98) before the implementation, and the differences were statistically significant (t=−82.48 to −15.15, P<0.01). After the “Specialized High Quality Nursing Care Items in Operating Room” was implemented, the contextual performance total score and dimension scores of mutual support among colleagues, extra burden outside work tasks, and support to the organization were (70.43±2.94), (28.23±1.21), (18.52±1.29), (23.67±1.86), respectively, higher than the respective scores (36.20±1.79), (15.52±1.94), (7.33±1.11), (13.34±0.87) before the implementation, and the differences were statistically significant (t=−91.99 to −46.68, P<0.01). In conclusion, the “Specialized High Quality Nursing Care Items in Operating Room” is a series of nursing care that can improve task performance and contextual performance of nurses in operating room and promote the quality of high-quality nursing in operating room. The task performance and contextual performance can also comprehensively and effectively evaluate the implementation effect of specialized high quality nursing care in operating room.

A practical method for the ex-ante evaluation of land consolidation initiatives: Fully connected parcels with the same value

Land consolidation is an important instrument open to public authorities seeking to achieve sustainable rural development, especially in countries where rural property is highly fragmented. As land consolidation projects are complex and costly, researchers have tried to better understand the concepts and improve the methodologies involved so as to ensure their success. In this paper, we propose a methodology for assessing ex-ante the most suitable areas in which land consolidation initiatives could be carried out. The land in these areas must have a similar per hectare value and must be fully connected, criteria that make land consolidation projects much easier to implement. The case study focuses on olive groves in the Andalusia region. Olives are a perennial crop with a very fragmented, static property structure. Previous land consolidation projects have often had poor results mainly because of the reluctance of the affected landowners to get involved, due to difficulties in ensuring that the land allocated to them in the consolidation process had the same value as the land they owned prior to it. Our results indicate that a land consolidation procedure in the areas identified would bring about a noticeable improvement in the property structure and production cost savings of between 5.8% and 15.3% depending on whether the farm is worked by the family or by hired employees.

The fatigue damage evaluation of gear in sugarcane presser using higher order ultrasonic nonlinear coefficients

Abstract The fatigue damage of gear in sugarcane presser is one of the most common damages, which is very difficult to detect in sugar factory. The nonlinear ultrasonic technique is used to evaluate the fatigue damage of gear in this paper. The perturbation method is applied to solve the nonlinear wave equation, the relationship between relative nonlinear coefficient and higher harmonics is analyzed which the second and third order relative nonlinear coefficients are applied to evaluate the fatigue damage. The gear in sugarcane presser after three years service is the research objective, which thirty-two points at tooth root and sixteen points at tooth centre are conducted the nonlinear ultrasonic experiment. Experimental results indicate different detection points have different damage degree, and the fatigue damage degree of tooth No. 14 and 15 are more serious than other teeth. While for the same tooth, the damage degree of tooth root is much severer than the tooth centre. Therefore, the measured relative nonlinear coefficients could be applied to evaluate the fatigue damage of gear, which provides the practical method for internal damage evaluation of gear in sugar factory.

Evaluation Methodology of Transit Based on Big Data Mining

Analysis of the operating conditions of public transit, potential problems and potential; evaluation of the existing public transport network scheme to meet the future urban public transport passenger traffic demand; feedback and verification of the implementation effect of public transport network planning. These are very important to traffic system management, especially bus operation management. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a scientific and practical evaluation index system and evaluation method for the public transport network, and make a scientific evaluation of the public transport network, and optimize the bus routes according to the evaluation results. Based on the big data mining and Bayesian network, a new method for evaluating public transport service is proposed. So, the service of transit can be evaluated reasonably from the point of quantitative analysis.

공동주택 수직 벽체 설치 BIPV 시스템의 발전량 예측 프로그램 개발 연구

Purpose: The installation of the BIPV system in the apartment complex is expected to increase significantly in the future. However, due to the characteristics of the apartment complex, it is very likely that the building will be shaded by neighboring buildings. Therefore, it is difficult to judge the efficiency of the installed BIPV system by simple judgment method. In order to expand the application of the BIPV system, a practical evaluation method for the annual Duration of Sunshine and the generation amount of the wall that BIPV panel will be applied, so that accurate economic judgment and optimization of the installation location are required. The purpose of this study is to develop a program that can effectively evaluate the annual Duration of Sunshine and the generation amount for the application location of the BIPV system installed on the vertical exterior wall of apartment. Method: In this study, a program was developed to evaluate the annual duration of sunshine, flux of solar radiation, and generation amount, which reflects the effects of obstruction on the BIPV installation site in the apartment complex. The method of evaluating the flux of solar radiation and generation amount of the developed program was verified by comparing measured data with prediction result. The evaluation program is designed to perform calculations in conjunction with commercial CAD programs, so that it is possible to easily evaluate the generation amount according to the installation location of BIPV without any special knowledge or program management training.Result: In addition, it is confirmed that more realistic generation amount can be calculated by using possible performance parameters that can be referenced in the PV performance test report.

Comparison of the Effects of Ticagrelor and Clopidogrel on Inflammatory Factors, Vascular Endothelium Functions and Short-Term Prognosis in Patients with Acute ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction Undergoing Emergency Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: a Pilot Study

Background/Aims: Acute ST-segment elevation of myocardial infarction (STEMI) is the most severe type of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Particular attention has been focused on studying the pathogenesis of STEMI, and how to prevent thrombosis, reduce inflammatory reaction, stabilize plaques and improve vascular endothelial functions to preserve the survived myocardium. This study aimed to compare the anti-inflammatory endothelium-protective effects, clinical prognosis, and relevant bleeding risks of ticagrelor versus clopidogrel in patients with STEMI who underwent urgent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and provide certain experimental evidence and a theoretical basis for the selection of safe and effective drugs and their proper dosage, thereby further guiding clinical medication. Methods: We sequentially enrolled 193 patients (104 males and 89 females) admitted to hospital due to acute STEMI. These patients underwent urgent PCI between December 2013 and May 2015 and met the inclusion criteria. They were assigned (1: 1) into two groups according to different treatments, 97 patients in the ticagrelor group (treatment group), and 96 patients in the clopidogrel group (control group). Levels of hypersensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and endothelial cell-specific molecule 1 (ESM-1) taken at admission and 24 h, 4 days, and 7 days after administration, as well as the correlation between the levels of IL-6, hs-CRP, and ESM-1, were determined in the two groups. At the same time, the effects of treatment with ticagrelor and clopidogrel on the efficacy endpoint events (ischemic and safety) were explored. Results: No statistically significant difference was found in the levels of hs-CRP, IL-6, or ESM-1 at admission between the two groups (P> 0.05); Their levels were significantly elevated 24 h after administration, with statistical differences between two groups (P< 0.05). Furthermore, a downward trend with statistically significant differences was found on Day 4 and Day 7 (P< 0.05); ESM-1 levels increased along with increases of hs-CRP and IL-6 levels, indicating ESM-1 was positively correlated with hs-CRP (r=0.523, P< 0.001) and IL-6 (r=0.431, P< 0.001); and the occurrence rates of ischemic endpoint events at 30 days were lower in the treatment group than in the control group. The occurrence of safety endpoint events was higher than in the control group; however, no statistically significant difference was found (P> 0.05). Conclusions: Compared with clopidogrel, ticagrelor appears to rapidly reduce the prevalence of inflammatory reactions and stabilize the functions of vascular endothelium to improve the stability of atherosclerotic plaque and decrease the occurrence rate of thrombosis as well as ischemic outcome events without any obvious increase in the risk of bleeding in patients with acute STEMI receiving urgent PCI. This renders it a potential drug for clinical practice. At the same time, measurement of ESM-1, a new biological marker for vascular endothelial function disorder, could possibly become a simple, effective, and practical new method for clinical evaluation of risk stratification of patients with acute STEMI at admission.

Developing multiple evaluation frameworks in an older adults care information system project: A case study from Taiwan

Many hospital managers agree that they can copy their successful experience in the medical center through implementing the information system (IS) successfully in the older adults care institution. However, these facilities are not the same care model as general hospitals. In addition, the scales of operation in older adults care institution are often rather small and they can not undertake IS project with a high failure risk. Thus, the same standards for evaluating a successful implementation cannot be guaranteed for both types of institutions. A suitable system evaluation framework before the whole system migrates is very important, especially in the older adults care institution with low informatization levels. The goal of this study is emphasized by developing an innovative system project and its’ multiple evaluation framework in our case which turned to be a research-action, study participant comprising whole staffs and its residents of the older adults care village of biggest health care group in Taiwan. The results describe our resulting functional design of the system, multiple evaluation framework phases, and several challenges, difficulties or attentions. The contribution of this study is our project design and practical feasibility and execution of its evaluation methodology to an older adults care institution. Key Practitioners Message Introducing an information system for older adults care institution in a holistic care concept helps practitioners to improve the work effectiveness of health care teams. Perceptions regarding the comprehensible and practical evaluation method of the information system for the older adults’ institution might be important topics for health care professionals. Both personal satisfaction and organization benefit of the caregivers and residents might affect the successful implementation

Multiple Regression-Based Calculation of Iron Ore Resource Royalty Rate and Analytical Study of Its Influencing Factors: Example from Anhui Province of China

Mineral resource royalty is the economic manifestation of mineral resource ownership benefits. In the context of globalized mineral resource allocation, it is inevitable to research the royalty evaluation in order to improve the marketized allocation efficiency of mineral resources. Current studies mostly include theoretical discussions on connotations of royalty and discussions on royalty levy criteria from the macroeconomic perspective. Studies of royalty calculation and application from the microeconomic perspective are not very common. Based on defining the connotations of equity value, a theoretical royalty calculation formula is suggested first in this paper and then a royalty evaluation model is constructed from the perspective of mineral resource endowment conditions with the methods of multiple regression-based analysis and dummy variables. The feasibility and scientific justification of the evaluation model were verified through empirical analysis of iron mines in Anhui Province of China. Compared to previous studies, this paper better interprets the linear relationship between mineral resource endowment conditions and royalty through simulation analysis of their corresponding relation, making up for the inadequacy of macroeconomic royalty studies. Empirical results indicate the following. (1) Endowment conditions of mineral resources are the key influencing factors of royalty rate, and five of these factors (average geological grade, average mining depth, average ore body thickness, hydrogeological condition and beneficial and harmful elements) are important indices in royalty evaluation. (2) Royalty increases with the price rise in the market of mineral products, but the royalty rate will infinitely approach a constant (60.1%). Based on endowment conditions of mineral resources, the royalty evaluation model constructed in this paper can accurately and objectively evaluate mineral resource royalty in different endowment conditions and provide a convenient and practical evaluation method for establishing royalty levy criteria.

Developing Age-Friendly Cities: an Evidence-Based Evaluation Tool

Recent years have seen a proliferation of initiatives aimed at enhancing the age-friendliness of urban settings. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) global Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) programme has been central to these. Cities seeking to become more age-friendly need reliable ways of assessing their efforts. This article describes an evidence-based evaluation tool for age-friendly initiatives whose development was informed by fieldwork in Liverpool/UK. The tool complements existing assessment frameworks, including those provided by WHO, by paying particular attention to the structures and processes underlying age-friendly initiatives. It reflects the complexity of age-friendliness by reconciling a focus on breadth with detail and depth, and it allows for a highly accessible visual presentation of findings. Using selected examples from Liverpool, the article illustrates how the evaluation tool can be applied to guide policy and practice with an age-friendly focus in different urban contexts. Pilot testing in further settings is underway to refine the tool as a practical method for evaluation and for supporting city-level decision making.