Flexible Service Research Articles

Facilitators and barriers to return to work and meet financial needs in parents of children with cancer.

The aim of this study was to explore what facilitators and barriers parents of children with cancer identify for their ability to return to work and meet financial needs. Nine focus groups (21 mothers; 11 fathers) were performed across Sweden in 2015 and 2019. A deductive content analysis approach was used. A preconstructed matrix consisting of 12 codes based on previous literature was used to organize the data. The codes were grouped into subcategories, which were abstracted to four generic categories. Facilitators for a return to work were covered in the category "Flexibility and understanding from employers and social services," and barriers in the category "Pressure to return without consideration of the consequences." Facilitators to meeting financial needs were covered in the category "Available public, private, and employer support," and barriers in the category "Lack of organized and efficient support from employers and social services." The identified barriers suggest that there is room for improvement in the provision of psychosocial support, which relates to a perceived lack of organized support regarding practical, financial, and occupational matters. The results show a need for a coordinated support system that includes major stakeholders, such as the health care, welfare agencies, and employers. Moreover, employers should consider how to implement more workplace flexibility and involvement of occupational health services. Importantly, to be able to return to work and achieve a sustainable financial situation, it is necessary for all stakeholders to recognize the long-term impact of parenting a child with cancer.

How to Procure Flexibility Services within the Electricity Distribution System: Lessons from an International Review of Innovation Projects

The aim of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the deployment of smart platforms (operated by distribution system operators—DSOs—or by independent parties) in key jurisdictions that facilitate the trading of flexibility services—primarily by DSOs. We look at key innovation projects/initiatives from seven jurisdictions, including Australia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, The Netherlands and Norway. We have deliberately selected 13 use cases that operate under different regulatory frameworks and market rules, and have been recently implemented (from 2017 onwards). With the selection of key use cases this study seeks to discuss the different smart architecture solutions and main capabilities across different demonstrators and their relationship to business as usual. It also analyses flexibility market designs, identifies main characteristics, and compares different price formation schemes and procurement methods. The value of flexibility for DSOs is also discussed.

SISTEM AUDIT ISO 9001 : 2000 INTERNAL DAN EKSTERNAL PENDEKATAN PADA PENINGKATAN KEPUASAN PELANGGAN (STUDI KASUS PADA PT. MARGA MAJU JAYA)

Munir Azhari, ISO 9001:2000 Internal and External Audit System Approach to Improve Customer Satisfaction.Quality is an image which is very hungered for each. Every flexible pavement in giving service to customer, goodnessin the case of product service and also service. Congeniality quality of in flexible pavement service industries contextcan be defined to through various approach, but in principle is reaching of according to among result of activity tobe delivered by customers to service company.ISO 9000 representing one of the management system quality of which is on this time become especial choice toflexible pavement service which wish to apply concept from management system quality of consistently and is systematic.The company that has the ISO must commit that is all kind from the lower level until top management have to runthe ISO system in right way. In this chase PT. Marga Maju Mandiri runs ISO system on the tract. The relationshipbetween ISO 9001 : 2000 implementing with customer satisfaction can be see as the result such as repeat order, thatis the customers have got the satisfaction. PT. Marga Maju Mandiri has been running the philosophy of the ISO 9001: 2000 ,they are; what you do you write, what you write you do, what you did you record and safety factor.The implementation of the quality management concept that has been carried out properly and effectively throughfull commitment from the company management in service orientation at PT. Marga Maju Mapan will produceasphalt services whose quality is closer to meeting the satisfaction desired by customers in accordance with workstandards and specifications.

Imbalance mitigation strategy via flexible PV ancillary services: The Italian case study

Large share of solar energy imposes a higher system flexibility to resolve the increased demand/supply imbalance due to the inherent intermittency and variability of the resource. In this work, we demonstrate that the additional solar-induced flexibility requirement can be fully provided by a special kind of solar farms, namely flexible PV. These plants are able to provide ancillary services by proactive generation curtailment and storage power injection and they can be managed exactly as the secondary reserve currently used. At the current and future penetration levels, we sized the flexible PV fleet required to reduce the Italian imbalance by 36 % (with respect to its 2016 value) while keeping the curtailment at 6 % of the national PV generation. We show how this result can be achieved at an equal or lower dispatching cost than current cost (depending on the solar share). In addition, we found that a fleet composed of many flexible PV plants with different capacity randomly distributed throughout the country provides an optimal solar regulation performance. Finally, we showed that the effectiveness of the proposed imbalance mitigation strategy depends only slightly on the year-specific load, wind, PV and energy prices profiles used to size the capacity of the flexible fleet.

Harmonious homegoings: alleviating consumer vulnerability through service fluidity and compassion

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the role of service flexibility in addressing consumer vulnerability for chronically-traumatized consumers within the funerary context.Design/methodology/approachUsing phenomenological philosophy and a grounded approach, data was collected and analyzed through 12 depth interviews with funeral service providers, coupled with observations and photographs of three second-line funeral processionals.FindingsStudy results include the following three primary roles of service providers in supporting chronically-traumatized consumers: the role of service fluidity in addressing trauma, mitigating vulnerability via service providers as community members and alleviating suffering through compassionate service. Service flexibility and value co-creation efforts were executed through an expansive service ecosystem of vendors.Practical implicationsWhen consumers experience vulnerability that demands reliance upon service industries, service providers can intentionally implement fluidity and agility in service design, adopt understanding and altruistic practices, and operate with empathy and compassion to orchestrate mutually-beneficial service outcomes.Social implicationsRooted in transformative service research, providers are advised to consider modifying services to improve well-being and mitigate vulnerability for chronically-traumatized consumers via fluidity, community and compassion.Originality/valueThis study contributes originality to the body of service marketing literature by illustrating how service providers alleviate vulnerability for chronically-traumatized consumers through three adaptive service strategies.

Characterization of Aggregated Building Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Load as a Flexibility Service Using Gray‐Box Modeling

Integrating large amounts of volatile renewable power into the electricity grid requires ancillary services (ASs) from multiple providers including flexible demand. These should be comparable by uniform and efficiently evaluable performance criteria. The objective is to characterize the technical flexibility of aggregated building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) under different operating conditions. New bounds of flexible power and holding durations, accordingly pay‐back power and recovery times, and ramping rates are derived, using a new gray‐box model of stochastically actuated aggregations of thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs) that can serve as well for load control. New closed formulas of the expected switching temperatures are derived using survival processes and hazard functions. This ex‐ante characterization enables fast decision tools for AS feasibility testing and planning by demand aggregators, as it neither relies on simulation or optimization, nor on the identification and clustering of unit‐level parameters. The estimates are explored in a sensitivity study of urban‐level heat pump heating with respect to six key input factors. A case study using dynamic regulation signals from Pennsylvania–New Jersey–Maryland (PJM) demonstrates the benefit, in terms of tracking precision, of the refined energy measures over pure energy or power capacity bounds.

Co-designing a methodology for workforce development during the personalisation of allied health service funding for people with disability in Australia

BackgroundInternationally, health and social services are undergoing creative and extensive redesign to meet population demands with rationed budgets. This has critical implications for the health workforces that serve such populations. Within the workforce literature, few approaches are described that enable workforce development for health professions in the service contexts that emerge from large scale service redesign in times of industry shift. We contribute an innovative and robust methodology for workforce development that was co-designed by stakeholders in allied health during the personalisation of disability funding in Australia (the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme).MethodsIn the context of a broad action research project, we used program logic modelling to identify and enact opportunities for sustainable allied health education and workforce integration amidst the changed service provision context. We engaged with 49 industry stakeholders across 92 research engagements that included interviews (n = 43), a workshop explicitly for model development (n = 8) and a Project Advisory Group (n = 15). Data from these activities were inductively coded, analysed, and triangulated against each other. During the program logic modelling workshop, we worked with involved stakeholders to develop a conceptual model which could be used to guide trial and evaluation of allied health education which was fit-for-purpose to emerging workforce requirements.ResultsStakeholder interviews showed that drivers of workforce design during industry shift were that (1) service provision was happening in turbulent times; (2) new concerns around skills and professional engagement were unfolding for AHP in the NDIS; and (3) impacts to AHP education were being experienced. The conceptual model we co-designed directly accounted for these contextual features by highlighting five underpinning principles that should inform methodologies for workforce development and AHP education in the transforming landscape: being (1) pedagogically sound; (2) person- or family-centred; (3) NDIS compliant; (4) informed by evidence and (5) having quality for all. We use a case study to illustrate how the co-designed conceptual model stimulated agility and flexibility in workforce and service redesign.ConclusionsProactive and situated education of the emerging workforce during policy shift is essential to realise future health workforces that can appropriately and effectively service populations under a variety of changing service and funding structures – as well as their transitions. We argue that collaborative program logic modelling in partnership with key stakeholders including existing workforce can be useful for broad purposes of workforce (re)design in diverse contexts.

Leveraging cloud environment flexibility to smoothen the transition to remote teaching during COVID-19 pandemic – a case study

Cloud-based computational environments can offer elastic and flexible services to wide audiences. Malopolska Educational Cloud was originally developed to support the day-to-day collaboration of geographically scattered schools with universities which organized online classes, led by university teachers, as an amendment to face-to-face teaching. Due to the centralized management and ubiquitous access, both the set of services provided by MEC and their usage patterns can be adjusted rapidly. In this paper we show how – during the COVID-19 pandemic – the flexibility of Malopolska Educational Cloud was leveraged to speed up the transition from in-class to remote teaching, both in the classes and schools which were already involved in the MEC project, and newly added ones. We also discuss the actions that were required to support the smooth transition and draw conclusions for the future. © 2021 The Author(s).

Modelling the Service Experience Encounters Using User-Generated Content: A Text Mining Approach.

Among services, the immense growth of Indian tourism in the last years has attracted the interest of practitioners, researchers, and governments. Service experiences at the point of encounter can impact the consumption of these tourism services extensively. However, measuring the service experience at the point of service encounter becomes a bit difficult. The tourists who visit India often share their experiences immediately regarding their service encounter in social media. These tweets often have high sentiments and emotional content. In this study, we attempt to identify factors which impact customer service experience, at the point of service encounter, by mining social media discussions. After removing spurious tweets, 7,91,804 tweets were identified and analysed in this study. Factors such as accessibility, accommodation, assurance, cultural attraction, Jugaadu service flexibility, cleanliness, hospitality, price, restaurant, and security were identified using topic modelling, topic association mining, and sentiment analysis. We attempt to model these experiences and their drivers across five zones of India, namely North, South, East, West, and North-East India. Our inferential analysis highlights that the importance and impact of these factors differ significantly zone wise across India, which indicates high location specificity of factors which impact the customer service experience. The study elaborates implications for theory and practice based on our findings.

Edge and fog computing using IoT for direct load optimization and control with flexibility services for citizen energy communities

The grid congestion and imbalance problems are nowadays approached through a new perspective of the energy flexibility services that are usually acquired through a bidding process by aggregators on behalf of grid operators and electricity retailers and traded via Local Flexibility Markets (LFM). They can be also acquired at a fixed price under specific conditions of interruption and operation. The flexibility services are offered by electricity consumers and prosumers that own generation and storage facilities and controllable appliances, adding value to the emerging Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and smart metering technologies. In this paper, we propose an adaptive direct load optimization and control with an Internet of Things (IoT) architecture and compare it with a classic approach of Direct Load Control (DLC). The optimization process consists in a day-ahead scheduling that aims to minimize the electricity expense using programmable appliances (shift) and their operational constraints, whereas the adaptive DLC comes on top of it with additional load control (shed) using flexibility to cope with real-time uncertainties including the temperature comfort of the consumers. As the consumption is recorded using smart meters and appliances that continuously generate large volumes of data at different time resolution and formats requiring fast analytical and decisional processes, the challenge consists in correlating and integrating the optimization requirements with IoT and appliance control within an edge and fog computing architecture to overcome grid congestion, power capacity scarcity and forecast errors. The simulations are performed using real open datasets consisting in 114 single-family houses that form a small community with modern and flexible appliances, providing that the electricity bill reduction is up to 22.62%. Furthermore, to validate, several indicators for consumers and aggregator are proposed: total daily used flexibility decreased on average by 21.05%, number of interruptions also decreased on average by 20.51%, maximum number of interruptions per appliance decreased by 58.33%, while Peak to Average Ratio (PAR) improved by 32% when implementing the proposed DLC architecture.

The Role of Regulators in Promoting the Procurement of Flexibility Services within the Electricity Distribution System: A Survey of Seven Leading Countries

This paper identifies and explores regulatory issues that may have an impact on the use of flexibility services by distribution utilities to solve grid constraints. This can be done by flexible distributed energy resources which can be instructed, for instance, to reduce export generating capacity or increasing consumption. We want to identify how regulation can better support the development of the future distribution utility in its role as neutral market facilitator, enabling more competition in local flexibility markets and optimal use of resources. A set of questionnaires were designed to capture the insights around important aspects of the regulation of flexibility markets (utilities’ network incentives, network tariff structure, market design for flexibility markets, etc.). These were sent to distribution utilities, energy regulators, energy marketplaces, energy associations and relevant experts from seven jurisdictions. The responses suggest a collective interest in the procurement of flexibility services by distribution utilities from distributed energy resources. New regulations, the adaptation of current rules and recent consultations reflect this. However, the amount of progress with and preferences for key regulatory changes differ across jurisdictions.

A Smart City Economy Supported by Service Level Agreements: A Conceptual Study into the Waste Management Domain

The full potential of smart cities is not yet realized, and opportunities continue to exist in relation to the business models which govern service provision in cities. In saying this, we make reference to the waste services made available by councils across cities in the United Kingdom (UK). In the UK, smart waste management (SWM) continues to exist as a service trialed across designated cities, and schemes are not yet universally deployed. This therefore exists as a business model which might be improved so that wider roll-out and uptake may be encouraged. In this paper, we present a proposal of how to revise SWM services through integrating the Internet service provider (ISP) into the relationship alongside home and business customers and the city council. The goal of this model is to give customers the opportunity for a more dynamic and flexible service. Furthermore, it will introduce benefits for all parties, in the sense of more satisfied home and business owners, ISPs with a larger customer base and greater profits, and city councils with optimized expenses. We propose that this is achieved using personalized and flexible SLAs. A proof-of-concept model is presented in this paper, through which we demonstrate that the cost to customers can be optimized when they interact with the SWM scheme in the recommended ways.

Aggregating Distributed Energy Storage: Cloud-Based Flexibility Services From China

To meet the newest carbon emission reduction and carbon neutrality targets, the capacity of variable renewable energy sources in China is planned to double in the next five years. A high penetration of renewable energy brings significant power system flexibility challenges, and the requirements for flexible resources become increasingly critical. Energy storage, as an effective and adaptable solution, may still be too expensive for peak shaving and renewable energy integration. A new type of business model has been proposed that uses cloud-based platforms to aggregate distributed energy storage resources to provide flexibility services to power systems and consumers. In such cloudbased platforms, storage resources can be more strategically used so that the unit cost of providing the service can be reduced. In the actual implementation of cloud-based energy storage, distributed resources have also been expanded from batteries to a variety of solutions, such as variable loads and heat storage.

A utility-based matching mechanism for stable and optimal resource allocation in cloud manufacturing platforms using deferred acceptance algorithm

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) as a successful manufacturing business model and a major driver of Industry 4.0 has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. CM idea aims to streamline the on-demand provisioning of manufacturing resources and capabilities as services, providing end-users with flexible and scalable services accessible through global networks. This idea created many opportunities and challenges. One of the critical challenges is resource allocation, which determines who interacts with whom and how in the CM platform. The type of the platform is a determining factor for the selection of the appropriate resource allocation. To analyze the impact of the allocation on the utilities, the paper models the behavior of the manufacturing providers and consumers based on their preference attributes. Then, the paper discusses the influence of the platform, matching algorithm, and resource availability on the utility of the manufacturing providers and consumers. As a result, the paper presents a framework to obtain managerial insights to decide about the appropriate matching algorithm under different situations. The framework suggests Consumer as Proposer Deferred Acceptance algorithm for public platforms when the resources are greater than or equal to the demand, and Provider as Proposer Deferred Acceptance algorithm when the resources are less than the demand in the same platform. In private platform, Consumer-oriented Kuhn-Munkres is suggested when the resources are greater than or equal to the demand, and Provider-oriented Kuhn-Munkres when the resources are less than the demand.

A Study of Computational Trust Models in Cloud Security

The interest in cloud computing and its techniques are gaining exponentially in IT industries because of its cost-effective architecture and services. However, these flexible services of cloud bring many security and privacy challenges due to loss of control over the data. This paper focuses on an analysis of various computational trust models in cloud security environment. The computational trust models that are used to build secure cloud architectures are not available in a blended fashion to overcome security and privacy challenges. The paper aims to contribute to the literature review to assist researchers who are striving to contribute in this area. The main objective of this review is to identify and analyse the recently published research topics related to trust models and trust mechanisms for cloud with regard to research activity and proposed approaches. The future work is to design a trust mechanism for cloud security models to achieve the higher level of security.

Zonal-based flexible bus service under elastic stochastic demand

This study investigates flexible bus that provides door-to-door service with multiple passengers sharing the vehicle, which reduces congestion on the urban network. The service area is divided into zones, and flexible buses are assigned to zonal routes based on the historical demand characteristics before demand realization. Passengers are served by either regular service or ad hoc service after the demand realization to minimize the sum of ad hoc service cost and detour time cost. The elastic and stochastic natures of demand are captured in the formulation by the volume stochasticity of demand, detour time stochasticity, and elasticity of demand with respect to the flexible bus service price and quality. The profit of the flexible bus service is maximized while accounting for the detour time cost. To effectively solve the problem, volume and detour time reliability measures are introduced to separate the problem into a vehicle-to-route assignment problem and a passenger-to-vehicle assignment problem. A gradient-based solution approach is devised to determine the flexible bus routing plans by optimizing the associated reliability measures. The solution approach is further improved by combining the gradient-based approach with a greedy search solution approach and relaxing the formulations. The formulation and solution approaches are implemented using real data in Chengdu, China, with promising results.

IA-CPS: Intelligent architecture for cyber-physical systems management

Nowadays, the emergence of large-scale and highly distributed cyber-physical systems (CPSs) in applications including Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, mobility, Big Data, and sensor networks involves that architecture models have to work in an open and highly dynamic world. This fact increasingly highlights the importance of designing real-time and intelligent CPSs that are capable of decision making. In this paper, an Intelligent Architecture model for CPS management (IA-CPS) based on online processing is proposed for this purpose. Specifically, it can manage simple and complex events based on a service-oriented architecture and directed by an event-driven architecture, using event processing technology as Complex Event Processing (CEP). The novelty of our approach relies on the fact that the proposed architecture is service-oriented, which models the functionalities of the event-driven system. This gives us the possibility to offer a flexible service catalog, allowing us to connect to the system on any kind of device and interact in different scenarios. The model has been applied to two use cases: processing images from video surveillance cameras, and processing of consumption data captured by water and energy sensors installed in end-user environments.

The impact of COVID-19 on substance use disorder treatment in California: Service providers' perspectives

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the U.S. health care system, including addiction treatment. The objective of this study is to describe the impact of COVID on the delivery of treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs) from the perspectives of service providers. MethodsBetween May and September 2020, 61 service providers from 16 SUD treatment sites in California participated in virtual focus groups that lasted about an hour. We recorded the discussions and transcribed them verbatim. Two qualitative analysts independently conducted content analysis to identify themes from the transcripts. ResultsAt the beginning of the pandemic, service providers observed a slight decrease in patient admissions, followed by an uptick in patient flow due to increased mental health issues, alcohol use, and relapse. Many of the clinics adopted flexible service delivery modes, such as curbside dosing and extended take-home medication, to enable social distancing in clinic settings. Approximately half of the clinic encounters offered telemedicime, and a considerable proportion of patients preferred to use telephone-based services rather than video-based services. Internet instability and technical difficulties limited the use of telemedicine among their patients. ConclusionCOVID has been challenging for SUD treatment, but health care systems rapidly reacted with adjustments that may result in long-term changes in SUD service delivery. Telemedicine-based services have played a major role in ensuring uninterrupted patient care. Providers need organizational, technical, and logistical support to improve and sustain telemedicine services that increase access to quality care for their patients.

Control and Validation of a Reinforced Power Conversion System for Upcoming Bioelectrochemical Power to Gas Stations

This paper presents a proposal for potential bioelectrochemical power to gas stations. It consists of a two-level voltage source converter interfacing the electrical grid on the AC side and an electromethanogenesis based bioelectrochemical system (EMG-BES) working as a stacked module on the DC side. The proposed system converts CO2 and electrical energy into methane, using wastewater as the additional chemical energy input. This energy storage system can contribute to dampening the variability of renewables in the electrical network, provide even flexibility and grid services by controlling the active and reactive power exchanged and is an interesting alternative technology in the market of energy storage for big energy applications. The big challenge for controlling this system lays in the fact that the DC bus voltage of the converter has to be changed in order to regulate the exchanged active power with the grid. This paper presents a cascade approach to control such a system by means of combining external control loops with fast inner loops. The outer power loop, with a proportional-integral (PI) controller with special limitation values and anti-windup capability, is used to generate DC bus voltage reference. An intermediate loop is used for DC bus voltage regulation and current reference generation. A new proportional resonant controller is used to track the current reference. The proposed scheme has been validated through real-time simulation in OPAL OP4510.

Power Quality Improvement in Distribution Grids via Real-Time Smart Exploitation of Electric Vehicles

Integration of electric vehicles into electric power system brings both challenges and solutions in the operation of power grids. On the one hand, simultaneously charging a large number of electric vehicles causes branch congestion or large voltage drop. Operating the electric vehicles in the discharging mode, on the other hand, introduces the provision of several ancillary services like peak power shaving and spinning reserves. From the electric vehicles operation point of view, thus, the distribution system operators require a real-time monitoring infrastructure to capture the states of electric vehicle chargers and accordingly operate their grids in the safe mode with respect to the power quality standards (e.g., EN 50160). In this context, the real-time smart charging and storage platform of the EU Horizon 2020 “MEISTER” project, based on the information and communication technology, manages the availability of electric vehicles as a potential source of energy in the need of one or more flexibility services demanded by low voltage distribution system operators. In addition to the implemented information and communication technology platform, this paper presents how the smart use of the electric vehicle resources supports the power quality of the distribution system in terms of system voltage support, bidirectional power flow management, harmonic alleviation and power factor control.