Perception Of Quality Research Articles

Development of tourism and tourism services in the canton of Nobol

The study seeks to investigate tourism development in Cantón Nobol, identify the most popular services among visitors, and examine areas for improvement in the local tourism sector. Qualitative and quantitative research is employed. The study sample includes tourists between the ages of 13 and 70 to ensure a diverse representation, while data collection is done through a digital survey using Google Forms. The results respond to the TES research project, "Tourism strategy of products and services for the strengthening of tourism micro-enterprises and SMEs in Nobol Canton". They help to have a complete vision of the perception of tourism and quality of life in Nobol Canton, pointing out both strengths and opportunities for improvement to consolidate its position as a desired tourist destination. Although Cantón Nobol already has a solid tourism base and well evaluated services, there are still areas with potential for growth and improvement within the regional tourism sector.

Assessment of visual quality and social perception of cultural landscapes: application to Anyi traditional villages, China

The assessment of landscape visual quality (LVQ) holds significant importance in the preservation and advancement of traditional villages. One challenge in measuring human perception lies in establishing a connection between public preferences and landscape characteristics. This study conducted an analysis of social media data from Anyi traditional villages in China to address this issue and identified eight human perceptions: naturalness, ancientness, colorfulness, variety, uniqueness, ingenuity, vividness, and pleasantness. A total of thirty characteristic indicators with potential explanations for LVQ were determined by research group through field investigations. A questionnaire survey was developed to assess human’s preferences using 82 traditional village photos, and scores for the eight perceptions were obtained. The logistic regression was employed to establish distinct perception models, with perceptions serving as the dependent variables and characteristic indicators as the independent variables. Nomograms were subsequently utilized to visualize regression results and display the correlation between these two factors. The findings suggest that nomograms facilitate intuitive determination of the weights assigned to characteristic indicators in perceptual models, as well as their influence on LVQ. This work provides a reference for decision-making related to the adaptive protection and development of traditional villages, thereby helping to enhance the competitiveness of tourist destinations.

Insight and empathy in schizophrenia: Impact on quality of life and symptom severity

BackgroundQuality of life has emerged as a powerful indicator of therapeutic success. However, little research has been conducted to study potential factors that influence quality of life in persons with schizophrenia, particularly in low-income developing nations. AimThis study aimed to investigate how insight and empathy impacted the quality of life and severity of symptoms in patients. MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional research design was conducted on 168 patients with schizophrenia using the PANSS Scale, Schizophrenia Quality of Life Scale R4, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Birchwood Insight Scale. ResultsOur findings show that the mean score for quality of life was (70.9 ± 9.2), whereas the mean scores for empathy and insight were (60.8 ± 15.8) and (5.8 ± 1.9), respectively. Insight and empathy have predicted effects on QoL (adjusted r square = 0.035, sig = 0.009) and (adjusted r square = 0.012, sig = 0.027), respectively. On the other hand, the regression model also showed a substantial inverse relationship between the severity of the illness and both empathy and insight. Conclusion: The majority of the clients had poor quality of life, low insight, and low empathy. Insight and empathy play a role in anticipating the patient's perceptions of quality of life. They might affect how severe their illness is. Our findings highlight the importance of developing empathy and insight, and therapies that do so may aid patients with low quality of life.

SERVICE QUALITY PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOURAL PURCHASE INTENTION IN HOTELS: A MEASUREMENT INVARIANCE OF COMPOSITE (MICOM) APPROACH

Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate service quality perception and behavioural purchase intention in hotels by utilizing a Measurement Invariance of Composite (MICOM) approach with the aim of understanding the differences in the service quality perception among male and female guests in hotels. Theoretical Framework: In this topic, the main concepts and theories that underpin the research are presented. The service quality theory and the theory of planned behaviour stand out, providing a solid basis for understanding the context of the investigation. Method: The methodology adopted for this research comprises the explanation design, including a quantitative approach. A total of 751 questionnaires were completed by visitors to Ghanaian hotels Results and Discussion: The results obtained revealed that although male and female hotel visitors perceive service quality differently, there are no appreciable variations between the impact of service quality perception on behavioural purchase intent. In the discussion section, these results are contextualized in light of the theoretical framework, highlighting the implications and relationships identified. Possible discrepancies and limitations of the study are also considered in this section. Research Implications: The practical and theoretical implications of this research are discussed, providing insights into how the results can be applied or influence practices in the field of marketing. These implications could encompass perceived service quality and behavioural purchase intent among hotel guests. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature by By contrasting the perceived service quality and behavioural purchase intentions of male and female customers among hotels utilizing the MICOM procedure. For municipal governments and service providers looking to increase behavioural purchase intention among male and female guests, this paper offers a variety of practical implications. The relevance and value of this research are evidenced by the fact that The assessment of perceived service quality may not be measurement-invariant. Therefore, when comparing the findings of a heterogeneous group, researchers should use caution.

Unfolding dynamics in the perception of interior vehicle acoustics via continuous evaluation procedure (CEP)

The evaluation of a soundscape is a challenging task as the object of study is not a stationary event of sensation but rather a dynamic and complex scene stretching over a specific period. To do justice to the time dimension in such acoustic scenes, we utilized the Continuous Evaluation Procedure (CEP). Extending common standard instruments asking participants for a singular integral at the end of the sound experience (e.g., on a rating scale), the participants in this study were enabled to continuously evaluate the evolving acoustic scene of accelerating electrified vehicles (EVs) using CEP. With the increasing electrification of powertrains in the automotive industry, acoustic engineers face the challenge of defining innovative sounds using the availabilities of now low-noise emission platforms of EVs that deviate in their noise profiles from familiar but technologically outdated internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), which have defined the general sound schemes for more than a century. To capture dynamic aspects in the quality perception of powertrain noise in EVs, we asked 37 participants to evaluate acoustic recordings of different vehicles in varying acceleration modes in a high-quality three-dimensional (3D) acoustic simulator. Thereby, we revealed much more detailed and time-dependent quality aspects, which do not come forth in an integral singular measure (ISM) where all impressions experienced during the ongoing acoustic scene are blended together. We, therefore, propagate the systematic application of the CEP method when it comes to the qualitative evaluation of transient acoustic scenes. CEP opens the great opportunity to unfold, detect, and analyze dynamic effects in soundscapes and noise profiles, but of any kind of acoustic signal.

Guaranteed-selling service of online used-car reselling platform: Feasibility and applicability compared with conventional resell and agency resell

Information asymmetry in the used-car market causes inconsistent product quality and price perceptions between buyers and sellers. Third-party reselling platforms with expertise can play a positive role in resolving this asymmetry. An emerging guaranteed selling (GS) service is a reselling service developed on online platforms, where the seller is offered a guaranteed selling duration and purchase price before the transaction begins. During this period, sellers can trade directly with buyers. After this period, the platform purchases the unsold used car at the agreed guaranteed purchase price. Although the GS service can reduce sellers’ trading uncertainty and guarantee revenue, it remains unclear whether this emerging service model is feasible. Hence, we verify the feasibility and optimal pricing policy of the GS model. It generates profits by extending the guaranteed selling duration within a threshold limited by the agency rate. Furthermore, we identify the optimal application scenario for the GS model. It is more profitable than the conventional and agency resell models, considering different consumer preferences. By extending the GS duration and reducing the agency rate within certain limits, the GS model can divert market shares of the conventional resell model and exclude the agency resell model from the platform’s model selection. The interaction between the GS duration and agency rate determines these limits. This study provides valuable insights and managerial guidelines for used-car reselling platforms.

The relationship between telemedicine tools and physician satisfaction, quality of care, and patient visits during the COVID-19 pandemic

ObjectiveThe objective of our study is to investigate the impacts of telemedicine technology and its specific tools on physicians’ overall satisfaction, quality of care, and percentage of patient visits in ambulatory care settings after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Materials and methodsData for our analysis was sourced from the 2021 annual National Electronic Health Records Survey (NEHRS), which included 1,875 complete questionnaire responses from physicians in the 2021 NEHRS. We used regression models to test the effects of telemedicine on physicians’ overall satisfaction, quality of care, and percentage of patients’ visits. ResultsWe report that telemedicine technology has significant positive effects on physicians’ satisfaction with telemedicine and quality of care evaluation, both at an aggregate level and at the disaggregate levels of individual telemedicine features, and partially significant effects on patients’ telemedicine visits. DiscussionTelemedicine features that contributed significantly to physician satisfaction and quality of care evaluation were telephone, videoconferencing, standalone telemedicine platform, and telemedicine platform integrated with EHR, while only telephone and integrated telemedicine platform contributed significantly to patients’ telemedicine visits. ConclusionFor telemedicine research and practice, this study confirms that telemedicine improves physician satisfaction and quality of care perceptions and will therefore be preferred by physicians. However, telemedicine has a mixed impact on percentage of patient visits, which suggests that providers may have to work harder to regularize telemedicine acceptance among patients in the post-COVID era.

Cost–utility analysis of a palliative care program in Colombia

BackgroundThe economic assessment of health care models in palliative care promotes their global development. The purpose of the study is to assess the cost-effectiveness of a palliative care program (named Contigo) with that of conventional care from the perspective of a health benefit plan administrator company, Sanitas, in Colombia.MethodsThe incremental cost-utility ratio (ICUR) and the incremental net monetary benefit (INMB) were estimated using micro-costing in a retrospective, analytical cross-sectional study on the care of terminally ill patients enrolled in a palliative care program. A 6-month time horizon prior to death was used. The EQ-5D-3 L questionnaire (EQ-5D-3 L) and the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL) were used to measure the quality of life.ResultsThe study included 43 patients managed within the program and 16 patients who received conventional medical management. The program was less expensive than the conventional practice (difference of 1,924.35 US dollars (USD), P = 0.18). When compared to the last 15 days, there is a higher perception of quality of life, which yielded 0.25 in the EQ-5D-3 L (p < 0.01) and 1.55 in the MQOL (P < 0.01). The ICUR was negative and the INMB was positive.ConclusionBecause the Contigo program reduces costs while improving quality of life, it is considered to be net cost-saving and a model with value in health care. Greater availability of palliative care programs, such as Contigo, in Colombia can help reduce existing gaps in access to universal palliative care health coverage, resulting in more cost-effective care.

Feature-level contrastive learning for full-reference light field image quality assessment

Light field (LF), as a new visual information representation for immersive experiences in virtual reality and augmented reality, has attracted extensive attention. It is of significance to establish the light field image quality assessment (LF-IQA) that conforms to the characteristics of human visual perception. Due to the spatial–angular inter-twined imaging mechanism, the quality evaluation for LF images faces more challenges than ordinary 2D/3D IQA. This paper proposes a feature-level contrastive learning based full-reference LF-IQA with a divide-and-conquer learning strategy. It first employs the cross-attention mechanism to learn the local contrast features related to the reference features from three subsets of distorted sub-aperture images (SAIs). Then a Transformer-based feature fusion is used to predict the overall perceptual quality. The evaluation experiments are carried out on three commonly used LF-IQA datasets: Win5-LID, NBU-LF1.0, and SHU. The experimental results demonstrate that our model outperforms the existing state-of-the-art LF-IQA methods.

Local Perception and Behavior in Domestic Waste Management and Water Quality of The Brantas River, Dinoyo Ward

Local Perception and Behavior in Domestic Waste Management and Water Quality of The Brantas River, Dinoyo Ward

Healthcare system barriers and facilitators to hypertension management in Ghana.

Background: Hypertension continues to pose a significant burden on the health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Multiple challenges at the health systems level could impact patients' blood pressure outcomes. There is a need to understand the gaps in health systems to improve their readiness to manage the rising burden of hypertension Objective: To explore health system barriers and opportunities for improved management of hypertension in Ghana, West Africa. Methods: We conducted 5 focus group discussions involving 9 health facility leaders and 24 clinicians involved in hypertension treatment at 15 primary-level health facilities in Kumasi, Ghana. We held discussions remotely over Zoom and used thematic analysis methods. Results: Four themes emerged from the focus group discussions: (1) financial and geographic inaccessibility of hypertension services; (2) facilities' struggle to maintain the supply of antihypertensive medications and providers' perceptions of suboptimal quality of insured medications; (3) shortage of healthcare providers, especially physicians; and (4) patients' negative self-management practices. Facilitators identified included presence of wellness and hypertension clinics for screening and management of hypertension at some health facilities, nurses' request for additional roles in hypertension management, and the rising positive practice of patient home blood pressure monitoring. Conclusion: Our findings highlight critical barriers to hypertension service delivery and providers' abilities to provide quality services. Health facilities should build on ongoing innovations in hypertension screening, task-shifting strategies, and patient self-management to improve hypertension control. In Ghana and other countries, policies to equip healthcare systems with the resources needed for hypertension management could lead to a high improvement in hypertension outcomes among patients.

A multi-centric, single-blinded, randomized, parallel-group study to evaluate the effectiveness of nasoalveolar moulding treatment in non-syndromic patients with complete unilateral cleft lip, alveolus and palate (NAMUC study): a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundCleft lip and palate (CLP) are among the most common congenital anomaly that affects up to 33,000 newborns in India every year. Nasoalveolar moulding (NAM) is a non-surgical treatment performed between 0 and 6 months of age to reduce the cleft and improve nasal aesthetics prior to lip surgery. The NAM treatment has been a controversial treatment option with 51% of the cleft teams in Europe, 37% of teams in the USA and 25 of cleft teams in India adopting this methodology. This treatment adds to the already existing high burden of care for these patients. Furthermore, the supporting evidence for this technique is limited with no high-quality long-term clinical trials available on the effectiveness of this treatment.MethodThe NAMUC study is an investigator-initiated, multi-centre, single-blinded randomized controlled trial with a parallel group design. The study will compare the effectiveness of NAM treatment provided prior to lip surgery against the no-treatment control group in 274 patients with non-syndromic unilateral complete cleft lip and palate. The primary endpoint of the trial is the nasolabial aesthetics measured using the Asher McDade index at 5 years of age. The secondary outcomes include dentofacial development, speech, hearing, cost-effectiveness, quality of life, patient perception, feeding and intangible benefits. Randomization will be carried out via central online system and stratified based on cleft width, birth weight and clinical trial site.DiscussionWe expect the results from this study on the effectiveness of treatment with NAM appliance in the long term along with the cost-effectiveness evaluation can eliminate the dilemma and differences in clinical care across the globe.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov CTRI/2022/11/047426 (Clinical Trials Registry India). Registered on 18 November 2022. The first patient was recruited on 11 December 2022. CTR India does not pick up on Google search with just the trial number. The following steps have to be carried out to pick up.How to search: (https://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/advsearch.php—use the search boxes by entering the following details: Interventional trial > November 2022 > NAMUC).

The Influence of Social Media Marketing , Product Quality and Price Perceptions on Purchasing Decisions for Some Skincare Products

There are several common problems in the beauty industry related to these variables. In social media marketing, the level of competition is very high, with many brands vying for consumer attention. Small brands may struggle to stand out among the big brands. Products that don't suit a consumer's skin type or concerns can lead to negative experiences and damage a brand's reputation. Consumers' experiences influence their reviews and recommendations, which can have a positive or negative impact on the company (Susanti &amp; Gunanto, 2022) .This research aims to identify the influence of social media marketing, product quality, and price perceptions on purchasing decisions for Somethingnc skincare. The sample was determined using a purposive sampling technique with a total of 100 respondents. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were tested using the SPSS 23 tool. The results of this research show that social media marketing, product quality, and price perceptions have a significant positive influence on purchasing decisions.

Mask-guided dual-perception generative adversarial network for synthesizing complex maize diseased leaves to augment datasets

In practice, acquiring and annotating data in specialized domains can be costly, thereby constraining the performance and applicability of deep learning. Utilizing generative models to synthesize data proves to be an effective augmentation technique. Therefore, this research proposes a diseased leaf generation pipeline to diversify the maize disease datasets. We introduce the Dual-Perception Cycle-Consistent Generative Adversarial Network (DP-CycleGAN). During training, incorporating our proposed Structure Perception (SP) loss and Texture Perception (TP) loss functions. These losses guide the model's attention areas through activation reconstruction and mask mechanisms, thereby improving the overall perceptual quality of the generated images and the realism of the disease lesions. We constructed a maize leaf mixed disease dataset to simulate the complex conditions of real-world disease occurrence. Experimental results show that the DP-CycleGAN generates higher-quality and more realistic diseased leaf images. Compared to CycleGAN and state-of-the-art method, DP-CycleGAN shows a 29.6% and 15.7% reduction in Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) scores and a 125.3% and 61.5% increase in Structural Similarity (SSIM) values, respectively. Simultaneously, by incorporating synthetic data during training, our approach significantly enhances the performance of the recognition model in scenarios of both data abundance and scarcity, with improvement rates exceeding two times those of existing state-of-the-art methods. This contributes to the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in agricultural production practices.

Aristotle on the causal efficacy of perceptible qualities

ABSTRACT Aristotle grants perceptible qualities the power to generate sense perception in animals. But it is unclear whether, for him, these qualities can produce any effect other than perception. In this paper, I address this issue through a novel approach. To show that they can produce non-perceptual effects, I explore contexts in his extant works where qualities appear to do causal work in nature without leading to perception in animals. This inquiry aims to demonstrate that Aristotle’s realism about qualities survives a potential threat posed by views that dispute the qualities’ causal efficacy outside perception.

Investigation of Football Fans’ Perceptions of Event Quality According to their Typologies

This research aims to develop a reliable and validated fan typology scale and to examine whether the perception of the quality of a sports event differs according to fan typology. In the first stage of the research, the scale was developed using quantitative research methods. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was applied to 339 fans, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used on 260 fans. Analysis results show that the structure of the tested scale provides valid and reliable evidence, and the structure consists of 35 items gathered under seven dimensions. After the development of the scale, in the second stage of the research, the relationship between the typologies of the fans and the quality perceptions of the sports event was examined. While Gençlerbirliği and Ankaragücü supporters using the Eryaman Stadium constituted the universe of the research, the sample of the study consisted of 502 fans selected by criterion sampling method. A two-stage hierarchical cluster analysis was used to reveal the fan typology. In addition, the research questions were tested using the t-test, ANOVA, and χ2. It was determined that four types of fans emerged: “hooligan,”“fanatic,”“classical,” and “social.” In addition, it was determined that the perceptions of event quality differed significantly according to the fan’s typologies. In this direction, it can be said that football clubs should develop different communication strategies to improve the perception of all fan types.

Perceptual point cloud qality assessment for immersive metaverse experience

Perceptual quality assessment for point cloud is critical for immersive metaverse experience and is a challenging task. Firstly, because point cloud is formed by unstructured 3D points that makes the topology more complex. Second, the quality impairment generally involves both geometric attributes and color properties, where the measurement of the geometric distortion becomes more complex. We proposed a perceptual point cloud quality assessment model that follows the perceptual features of Human Visual System (HVS) and the intrinsic characteristics of the point cloud. The point cloud is first pre-processed to extract the geometric skeleton keypoints with graph filtering-based re-sampling, and local neighboring regions around the geometric skeleton keypoints are constructed by K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) clustering. For geometric distortion, the Point Feature Histogram (PFH) is extracted as the feature descriptor, and the Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) between the PFHs of the corresponding local neighboring regions in the reference and the distorted point clouds is calculated as the geometric quality measurement. For color distortion, the statistical moments between the corresponding local neighboring regions are computed as the color quality measurement. Finally, the global perceptual quality assessment model is obtained as the linear weighting aggregation of the geometric and color quality measurement. The experimental results on extensive datasets show that the proposed method achieves the leading performance as compared to the state-of-the-art methods with less computing time. Meanwhile, the experimental results also demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method across various distortion types. The source codes are available at https://github.com/llsurreal919/PointCloudQualityAssessment.

Assessing Quality of In-Patient Care and Patients's Expectations Using A SERVQUAL Approach in A Tertiary Care Hospital in India

Background: Patient satisfaction is a key indicator of healthcare service quality and has implications for the growth and success of healthcare organizations. However, there is often a gap between patients’ expectations and perceptions of service quality, which can vary depending on various sociodemographic factors. This study aimed to assess the expectations, perceptions and service quality gap in a tertiary care hospital using SERVQUAL model. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 120 adult inpatients using a semi-structured questionnaire based on the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model. The quality gap was calculated as the difference between perception and expectation scores. Results: The study found a significant negative quality gap across all five dimensions, with the largest gaps observed in reliability and responsiveness. The study also revealed that gender, age, and education influenced patients’ perception of service quality, while type of specialty, residence, monthly income, and occupation did not have a significant effect. Conclusion: The study highlighted the need for improving the service quality in the tertiary care hospital, especially in terms of reliability and responsiveness. The study also suggested that healthcare managers and providers should consider the diverse expectations and needs of patients based on their sociodemographic characteristics.

Does Technological Innovativeness Influence Users' Experiences With Virtual Reality Tourism?

ABSTRACTImmersive experiences offered by virtual reality (VR) have the power to impact tourists' decision‐making and on‐site experiences. However, prior research has focused on explaining VR's acceptance by tourists as a function of technological capacity, rather than user characteristics, such as innovativeness. This research intends to fill the existing knowledge gap regarding the role of technological innovativeness on VR experiences. To do so, this study examines whether individuals' technological innovativeness influences their perceptions of a VR tourism experience and, in turn, their intention to recommend the experience. The study provides a VR experience to 405 tourists at a winery. The results reveal that the tourists' technological innovativeness influences their perception of enjoyment, experience quality, and satisfaction. These findings suggest that, when developing or distributing VR content, the technological innovativeness of the audience is important to consider. The findings have theoretical and practical value, with direct implications for tourism professionals and policymakers.

Relationship Between Perceptions of Healthy Food Access and Dietary Quality Among Adults From the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study

Relationship Between Perceptions of Healthy Food Access and Dietary Quality Among Adults From the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study