Vehicle For Service Delivery Research Articles

Simultaneous product and service delivery vehicle routing problem with time windows and order release dates

In this paper, a new variant of the well-known vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) called as the simultaneous product and service delivery problem with order release dates is studied. The problem is motivated by the operations of a 3PL service provider who manages the last mile delivery of electrical and electronic home appliances of a large retailing company based out of China. Apart from the usual constraints on time windows and vehicle capacities, an interesting characteristic of this problem is that the product and service delivery has to happen simultaneously with the explicit consideration of order release dates. This situation necessitates the presence of a skilled service technician at the time of product delivery itself. Being a proven NP-hard problem, we propose a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation for the problem. For solving large problem instances, an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm is developed with three new customized removal operators. The proposed approaches are validated using real-life data as well as benchmark problem instances available in the literature. The computational results are quite encouraging and demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of computational time as well as the quality of the solutions generated. We also analyze the effect of length of time windows and compare simultaneous and separate modes of delivery and identify favorable conditions for choosing one mode over the other.

Forty-five years later: the challenge of optimizing assertive community treatment.

Assertive Community Treatment is an established evidenced based practice that provides intensive community treatment for individuals with severe mental illness with recurrent hospitalizations and/or homelessness. Emerging evidence indicates limitations in its implementation in terms of to the original ACT model and its current relevance. Findings from recent studies (2018-2020) reveals challenges with implementation centered around basic implementation activities, such as changes in the psychosocial context of individuals with SMI, clinicians' abilities to demonstrate competencies with new practices, and ongoing evolution of mental health systems of care worldwide. Intermediary and purveyor organizations (IPO) can provide the infrastructure to support the spread of EBPs while addressing challenges and opportunities. Thus, implementation of ACT can be accomplished when employing a rigorous framework and infrastructure that can synthesize and translate science relevant for practice. The relevance of ACT depends on its implementation that is responsive to change. An implementation science-informed approach is key to providing ACT to individuals in the critical space between the hospital and community. With this approach, we can optimize ACT as a service delivery vehicle by careful analysis of how best to furnish and evaluate the latest, most effective and efficient treatments, rehabilitation and support services.

Technology 2.0: A Commentary on Progress, Challenges, and Next Steps.

This commentary highlights the importance and promise of the innovative strategies described in the Child Maltreatment special issue on "Technology 2.0: A Focus on the Newest Technological Advances in Child Maltreatment Research." The commentary first highlights the collective advancements reflected in the articles in the special issue, with a primary focus on how the authors' work addresses a general challenge in services research that is perhaps nowhere more problematic than in the field of maltreatment. Next, the commentary extends the discussion of these articles to raise remaining gaps in our knowledge, theory, and methodology, which must be the focus of ongoing research if the true potential of technology as a service delivery vehicle is to be realized. Finally, the commentary concludes with a call for subsequent research which will be inspired by the articles in this special issue.

Language schemes – a useful policy tool for language planning?

The Irish language is recognised in Bunreacht na hÉireann [The Constitution of Ireland] as the national and first official language, and provisions to support the language are to found in c.120 specific enactments in Irish legislation. In 2007, the Irish language was designated as an official working language of the European Union. In 2003, the Irish Government enacted the Official Languages Act to ensure better availability and a higher standard of public services through Irish. This was to be principally achieved by placing a statutory obligation on public bodies to make specific provision for the delivery of such services in a coherent and agreed way. This obligation is known as a ‘language scheme’. This paper critically reviews the language schemes as a vehicle for service delivery based on the evidence over 10 years of the operation of the Act. The paper also refers to a lesser degree to other analogous cases, most notably Scotland and Wales. As the Office of the Language Commissioner is charged with ensuring that the schemes are implemented, the paper will review the data provided by the Language Commissioner in 10 annual reports and other publications. The final section of the paper presents a view based on the data as to the strengths and weaknesses of language schemes as instruments for language planning.

Future Directions in the Design, Development, and Investigation of Technology as a Service Delivery Vehicle

Treatment outcome research with children and adolescents has progressed to such an extent that numerous handbooks have been devoted to reviewing and summarizing the evidence base. Ensuring that consumers of these advancements in state-of-the-field interventions have the opportunity to access, engage in, and benefit from this evidence base, however, has been wrought with challenge. As such, much discussion exists about innovative strategies for overcoming the gap between research and practice; yet no other potential solution that has received more attention in both the popular and academic press than technology. The promise of technology is not surprising given the fast-paced evolution in development and, in turn, a seemingly endless range of possibilities for novel service delivery platforms. Yet this is precisely the most formidable challenge threatening to upset the very promise of this potential solution: The rate of emerging technologies is far outpacing the field's capacity to demonstrate the conceptual or empirical benefits of such an approach. Accordingly, this article aims to provide a series of recommendations that better situate empirical enquiry at the core of a collaborative development, testing, and deployment process that must define this line of work if the promise of mental health technologies is going to be a reality for front-line clinicians and the clients they serve.

Future Directions in the Design, Development, and Investigation of Technology as a Service Delivery Vehicle

Future Directions in the Design, Development, and Investigation of Technology as a Service Delivery Vehicle

Co-Teaching: An Illustration of the Complexity of Collaboration in Special Education

Although collaboration among service providers has been a hallmark of special education almost since its inception, co-teaching, the sharing of instruction by a general education teacher and a special education teacher or another specialist in a general education class that includes students with disabilities, is a relatively recent application. As a result of recent federal legislation and related policy changes, co-teaching has evolved rapidly as a strategy for ensuring that these students have access to the same curriculum as other students while still receiving the specialized instruction to which they are entitled. Despite considerable enthusiasm expressed by those who write about co-teaching and those who implement it, co-teaching illustrates the complexity of conceptualizing and studying collaboration in special education. Most inquiry on co-teaching has emphasized co-teachers' roles and relationships or program logistics rather than demonstrating its impact on student achievement and other key outcomes, and far more literature exists describing co-teaching and offering advice about it than carefully studying it. Contributing to the admittedly equivocal evidence base for co-teaching are factors such as the still emerging understanding of this special education service delivery vehicle, inconsistencies in definitions and implementation, lack of professional preparation, and dilemmas related to situating co-teaching in a supportive, collaborative school culture. The future of co-teaching may be dependent on increasing the quantity and quality of research on it and placing co-teaching in the larger context of school reform and improvement.

Experience base and system context in mental health care reform

Experience base and system context in mental health care reform

Mental health in Europe: a long road ahead

Mental health care in Europe underwent profound changes in the last 30 years. Almost everywhere in the western European countries hospital-based care has been downsized and a concurrent increase in various forms of community care has taken place. Despite this general trend, many cross-country differences are visible: they concern the extent of the reduction in size and importance of mental hospitals, the setting up of community-based services and the parallel change in staff training, as professional resources are ultimately the crucial factor for granting a different model of treatment and care. In this perspective a major problem in the often hot discussions among professionals, and also in the very delivery of mental health care, is due to the scarce awareness of a key point spelled out by Thornicroft (2000): community care ‘is a service delivery vehicle. It can allow treatment to be offered to a patient, but is not the treatment itself. This distinction is important, as the actual ingredients of treatment have been insufficiently emphasized’ (Thornicroft 2000). A full understanding of this central point can avoid many of the practical mistakes and of the speculative expectations in the recent past. This special issue of the European Archives of Psychiatry and Neurological Science includes four contributions aimed at providing a clear and largely comparable picture of the current state of mental health care in four main European countries: France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. As we noted above, these contributions show that, while the tendency for the homogenization of different systems of care in Europe, as well as of most aspects of societal sectors and values, is in place, a long road remains to be made in order to achieve a real homogeneity between mental health services in different countries composing the European mosaic. Most of these differences and many of the service shortcomings have to do with the gap between the acquisition of knowledge and its application: the results of most research studies are not opportunely transformed into improved patient care and more cost/effective organization of services. Indeed, new knowledge—if applied—is frequently implemented inadequately, inappropriately, and inconsistently. It is our hope that the contributions included in this issue of the EAPNS will help clinicians, researchers and policy planners cope with these difficult challenges of the future.