Service Items Research Articles

Current Status and Research Progress of Chinese Children’s Immunization During The COVID-19 the Pandemic Situation Fuyong Jiao1*, Fen Ma2 , Siqiong Li3 , Feng Yang4 , Wenxing Qiao5 andYang Xue5

Vaccination is the most economical and effective means to prevent control and even eliminate infectious diseases, and it is one of the most basic public health service items provided by the government to the masses. Every year, April 25th is the Publicity Day for Children’s Vaccination in China. Due to the new crown pneumonia, the city is closed to fight the epidemic, and the vaccination is suspended. My country’s rapid control of the new crown epidemic has started in an orderly manner with child vaccinations. In the 70 years since the founding of New China, my country’s public health, especially the prevention and control of infectious diseases, has made world-renowned achievements, which are inseparable from vaccination. This article aims to carry out the vaccination work under the prevention and control of the epidemic situation in my country, the types of domestic Class I and II vaccines and the vaccination procedures, as well as the methods for replanting children after they are not vaccinated in time due to the epidemic or other uncontrollable factors. Vaccine research and application development of innovative vaccines are summarized and sorted out.

Can Cruise Services Satisfy Chinese Outbound Travelers? An Importance–Performance Analysis

ABSTRACT This study aims to explore tourists’ satisfaction with cruise services and the gap between expectation and satisfaction, focusing on Chinese outbound tourists traveling to South Korea. Using a mixed-methods approach, in-depth interviews were conducted to summarize items of cruise services for measurement; importance–performance analysis was performed to simultaneously examine the matching degree between tourists’ perceived importance and performance. Tourists’ expectation is measured by the side of importance, meanwhile, performance represents their satisfaction. This study suggests that cruising is an important way for Chinese tourists to travel abroad, and tourists were generally satisfied with the services provided by immigration, customs, and the cruises. However, a gap remains between the perceived expectation and satisfaction. In terms of cruise service, the most important item was the good language and communication skills of the staff, and the most satisfactory performance was the effective boarding service. The biggest gap was observed in the effective service of handling ticket bookings, cancellations, and confirmations. The results of this study can provide insight into enhancing cruise services and marketing, specifically for companies working with the Chinese market.

Joint inspection and inventory control for deteriorating items with time-dependent demand and deteriorating rate

In this paper, we consider inventory control problems for deteriorating items with maximum serviceable lifetime under mixed sales situation, both of the demand and the deterioration rate are depending on time. A model is presented to formulate the process of mixed sales that deteriorated items are sold to consumers together with serviceable items, where penalty cost for the sales of deteriorated products is included. From the literature search, this study is one of the first researches on the joint inspection and inventory control policies under the mixed sales situation with time-dependent demand and deterioration rate. An additional ordering contract is designed to improve the inventory holder’s profit. The optimal ordering time and ordering quantities are characterized for the additional ordering contract. We show that it would be more beneficial for the inventory holder to employ an additional order. Furthermore, two different inspection policies are considered in this study: (i) one inspection during the cycle; (ii) continuous monitoring in the cycle. The numerical results show that the net profit would increase if one inspection or continuous monitoring is conducted. These results provide useful insights to guide decision-making in inventory control problems of deteriorating products.

Research on evaluation of airport service quality based on improved AHP and Topsis methods

The aim of this paper is to propose a multi-criteria decision-making approach, combining the ‘analytic hierarchy process’ (AHP) and ‘technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution’ (Topsis) for the quantitative assessment of airport service quality so as to increase the objectivity and reliability of the results. The criteria hierarchy with quantitative indicators is established to make up for the deficiencies of previous evaluation criteria. Some of these indicators are improvements to the qualitative indicators that are commonly mentioned, and some have been only rarely taken into account in previous research studies or evaluation activities, but are also very important. An empirical study for evaluating the service quality of four major international airports in China is presented to illustrate the superiority and rationality of the criteria system and method. This comprehensive method not only helps to obtain the overall ratings of the airports, as well as the specific weaknesses and advantages in particular service items, but also improves the efficiency and increases the credibility and objectivity of the results. Finally, some interesting conclusions are obtained and some targeted measures are offered to the four airports for improvement of the service level.

A model of a production-repair inventory system with time-varying demand and quality-dependent recovery channels

In this paper, we study an inventory system over an infinite planning horizon where a time-varying demand is satisfied by process cycles that consist of a production batch followed by a recovery batch. Our model considers three types of inventory—returned items, serviceable items, and raw material. Furthermore, our model considers two recovery channels—recovery into serviceable items and recovery into raw material. Serviceable items are thus sourced from two inputs—direct recovery and production from raw material. These raw materials can be salvaged from returned items, as well as bought from external sources whenever required. We propose an expression for the unit time total cost as well as a numerical method to find the optimal policy. The properties of the model are studied through numerical experiments, in particular, the feasible situations where hybrid policies are better than pure policies.

Optimal Production Control of Remanufacturing Systems Based on a Queueing Model With Returns

This paper analyzes an optimal dynamic production control problem of a remanufacturing system in stochastic environment. The system consists of one inventory for serviceable items and one virtual inventory for the items used by customers which will be either remanufactured to be serviceable items or discarded. Demands will be lost if there is no serviceable items available. At any decision epoch, the decision maker has to decide whether to produce items or not by raw materials, so as to minimize the long run average cost. The optimization problem is constructed as a Markov decision process (MDP). We show that the optimal policy has a multi-threshold structure (switching curve) and it is monotonic in system parameters. Furthermore, based on the structure of the optimal policy, we construct a performance evaluation model for computing efficiently the optimal thresholds. The expression of the average cost is given by a quasi-birth-death (QBD) process. Finally, we provide some numerical results to show the effectiveness of our approach and the impact of different parameters on the optimal policy and average cost.

Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing in Korea: Current Status and Significance in Clinical Nutrition.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT) provides a means for consumers to gain insights into their genetic background and how it relates to their health without the involvement of medical institutions. In Korea, DTC-GT was introduced in 2016 in accordance with the legislation on Paragraph (3) 2 of Article 50 of the Bioethics and Safety Act. Only 12 genetic test items involving 46 genes were approved at first, but the approved items were expanded to 70 in November 2020. However, the genetic test items of DTC-GT services in Korea are still restricted to the wellness area, and access to disease risk related information is only permitted to medical institutions. Further, studies revealing the relationship between genotype differences and responses to nutrients, food components, or nutritional status are increasing, and this association appears to be robust for some genes. This strong association between genetic variations and nutrition suggests that DTC-GT can be used as an important tool by clinical nutritionists to gain insights into an individual's genetic susceptibilities and provide guidance on nutritional counseling and meal planning based on the patient's genetic information. This review summarized the history and current status of DTC-GT and investigated the relationship between genetic variations with associated phenotypic traits to clarify further the importance of DTC-GT in the field of clinical nutrition.

Design of New Elderly Care Service Acquisition Mode from the Perspective of Internet Economic Innovation

This research focuses on a service acquisition mode for parents in urban separated families of China to promote the popularization of elderly care services in Internet economy. Based on interviews and questionnaires, authors find the pain point of the elderly care service acquisition mode and propose a tripartite participatory mode. Using this new service acquisition mode, adult children can play an assistant role with a smartphone-based service purchase platform. Next, in order to determine what services should be provided priorly on the platform, an empirical study based on questionnaires and KANO model is carried out to screen a propriate services items. Through the innovation of new elderly care service acquisition mode, more practitioners are supposed to expands their business effectively in aging market, and to play an ever more active role in the growth of Internet economy.

Engelli Bireylerin Kamu Hizmetlerinden Memnuniyeti: Nazilli İlçesi Örneği

Dünya Sağlık Örgütü, 2011 tarihli Dünya Engellik Raporu’nda dünyada 18 yaş üzeri nüfusun %15.6’sının engelli olduğunu belirtmektedir. OECD, AB ülkeleri ve Türkiye’de de %15’inin üzerinde engellilik durumu söz konusudur. Yaşlılık ve kronik hastalıkların giderek artması ile birlikte engelli birey sayısı da artmaktadır. Bu durum ülkelerde engelli bireylerin ihtiyaçlarının ve beklentilerinin de dikkate alındığı politikaları ve uygulamaları gerekli kılmaktadır.
 Çalışmanın amacı Nazilli ilçesindeki engellilerin kamu hizmetlerinden memnuniyetlerinin ortaya konulması, durum ve ihtiyaç analizinin yapılmasıdır. Bu konuda sosyal farkındalık düzeyinin arttırılması da amaçlanmaktadır.
 Çalışmada yerel ölçekte bir alan çalışmasıyla engellilerin kamu hizmetlerinden ve belediyecilik hizmetlerinden memnuniyet durumları belirlenerek memnuniyet düzeyinin engel türüne göre farklılaşıp farklılaşmadığı analiz edilmektedir. Ankete katılan 142 engelli bireylerin yaklaşık olarak yarısını fiziksel engelli bireyler oluşturmaktadır. Engellilerin çoğunluğu kadın, bekar, ilkokul mezunu ve 35-44 yaş aralığındaki bireylerden oluşmaktadır. Engelli bireylerin önemli bir çoğunluğu istihdama katılmamaktadır. Betimleyici istatistikler tüm kamu hizmet kalemlerinde ve genel olarak kamu hizmetlerinden memnuniyetin oldukça yüksek olduğunu göstermektedir. Ancak belediyenin altyapı, sosyal ve kültürel aktiviteler ve sportif aktivitelerinden memnuniyet genel memnuniyet düzeyinin altında kalmaktadır. ANOVA testi sonucu adli ve idari hizmetlerden memnuniyetin engel türüne göre farklılaştığını göstermektedir. Engel türüne göre hizmetlerden memnuniyet çoklu karşılaştırmalar analizi fiziksel engelliler ve birden fazla engeli bulunan bireylerin adli ve idari hizmetlerden memnuniyetleri arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir fark bulunduğunu göstermektedir. Çoklu karşılaştırma sonucu yaygın gelişimsel bozukluk engeli olan bireyler ile birden fazla engeli bulunan bireylerin adli ve idari hizmetlerden memnuniyetleri arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir fark bulunduğu saptanmıştır.

TINGKAT KEPUASAN MAHASISWA TERHADAP LAYANAN BIMBINGAN TUGAS AKHIR

Nowadays, there are several universities in West Kalimantan that have mathematics education department, such as IKIP Pontianak, STKIP Singkawang, and STKIP Sintang. This condition provides great opportunities for prospective students who want to become mathematics teachers in schools, especially high schools. On the other side, the presence of mathematics education department in several universities in West Kalimantan is a challenge for Mathematics Education department FKIP Untan. One of the challenges that come is how to produce graduates who can compete in the world of work. In order to create qualified mathematics teacher candidates, it is very important for the FKIP Untan mathematics education department to provide one of the quality final assignment guidance services so that final year students can have quality final projects. This study will examine how high the level of student satisfaction with final assignment guidance services in Mathematics Education Department FKIP Untan. Furthermore, it will be known what service items should be improved and developed in an effort to increase student satisfaction. The level of student satisfaction with the final assignment guidance service is 0% of students are not satisfied, 0% of students are not satisfied, 9% of students are satisfied, 30% of students are quite satisfied, and 61% of students are very satisfied. It can be concluded that the final year students of the Mathematics Education Department, Teaching and Education Faculty, Tanjungpura University are satisfied with the services provided by the supervisorsKeywords: Satisfaction; academic services; final assignment guidance.

TINGKAT KEPUASAN MAHASISWA TERHADAP LAYANAN AKADEMIK

Nowadays, there are several LPTK in West Kalimantan that have mathematics education courses apart from FKIP UNTAN. This is a challenge for FKIP UNTAN to become the main choice for prospective students. So, it is very important for the FKIP UNTAN mathematics education department to provide quality academic services to students so that they feel satisfied. One of the student satisfaction assessments index in academic services in the Mathematics Education Department of FKIP UNTAN is academic guidance and course implementation. This study will examine how high the level of student satisfaction with academic services in the Mathematics education Department FKIP UNTAN . Furthermore, it will be known what service items should be improved and developed in an effort to increase student satisfaction. The method used is descriptive method with a survey form involving students in 3rd, 5th, and 7th semester. The instrument used is a satisfaction questionnaire. The level of student satisfaction with academic guidance services is 2% of students are not satisfied, 6% of students are not satisfied, 30% of students are satisfied, 32% of students are quite satisfied, and 30% of students are very satisfied. Then for the level of student satisfaction with the lecture process as much as 2% of students were not satisfied, 5% of students were not satisfied, 27% of students were satisfied, 36% of students were quite satisfied, and 30% of students were very satisfied.Keywords: Satisfaction; Academic Services; Academic Guidance; The Lecture Process.

Applying Internet information technology combined with deep learning to tourism collaborative recommendation system.

Recently, more personalized travel methods have emerged in the tourism industry, such as individual travel and self-guided travel. The service models of traditional tourism limit the diversity of service options and cannot fully meet the individual needs of tourists anymore. The aim is to integrate sparse tourism information on the Internet, thereby providing more convenient, faster, and more personalized tourism services. Based on the shortcomings of the traditional tourism recommendation system, a deep learning-based classification processing method of tourism product information is proposed. This method uses word embedding in the data preprocessing stage. The Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is used to process review information of users and tourism service items. The Deep Neural Network (DNN) is used to process the necessary information of users and tourism service items. Also, factorization machine technology is used to learn the interaction between the extracted features to improve the prediction model. The results show that the proposed model can maintain an excellent precision of 64.2% when generating personalized recommendation lists for users. The sensitivity and accuracy of the recommendation list are better than other algorithms. By adding DNN, the word embedding method, and the factorization machine model, the precision is improved by 30%, 33.3%, and 40%, respectively. The model accuracy is the highest with 40 hidden factors, 100 convolutions, and a 100+50 combination hidden layer. Compared with traditional methods, the proposed algorithm can provide users with personalized travel products more accurately in personalized travel recommendations. The results have enriched and developed the theory of tourism service supply chain, providing a reference for constructing a personalized tourism service system.

How far are the public university libraries in Bangladesh meeting students' expectations? – An analysis of service quality through LibQUAL+ core items

PurposeThe main aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which the major public university libraries in Bangladesh are meeting students' service expectations through analyzing LibQUAL+ core items.Design/methodology/approachThe survey data were obtained from students using a paper version of the questionnaire consisting of LibQUAL+ core 22 service items at four top-ranked public universities in Bangladesh. Students rated the items on three service levels each using a nine-point scale: Minimum level, Desired level and Perceived Level. Descriptive statistics, i.e. mean and SD were obtained and service adequacy gap (SAG) scores between perceived and minimum levels were computed to see whether the libraries are meeting students' minimum expectation. Non-parametric Wilcoxon sign rank test was conducted to examine the differences between minimum and perceived scores. Finally, Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests were conducted to see the effect of students' demographic variables on their ratings on minimum and perceived scores.FindingsThe findings revealed that the service performances of major university libraries are lagging far behind from students' minimum expectation (minimum > perceived). There are significant differences between minimum and perceived scores. Significant differences are also found in students' gender, age and enrolment level concerning their ratings on minimum and perceived service levels.Practical implicationsThe result of this study analyzes the service quality of major university libraries in Bangladesh. These findings can be used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the library services.Originality/valueLibQUAL+ has been used mostly in academic libraries in developed countries but this is for the first time a paper-version of the instrument was used in university libraries in Bangladesh.

Effect of family doctor contract services on patient perceived quality of primary care in southern China

BackgroundFamily doctor contract service is an important service item in China’s primary care reform. This research was designed to evaluate the impact of the provision of family doctor contract services on the patient-perceived quality of primary care, and therefore give evidence-based policy suggestions.MethodsThis cross-sectional study of family doctor contract service policy was conducted in three pilot cities in the Pearl River Delta, South China, using a multistage stratified sampling method. The validated Primary Care Assessment Tool-Adult Edition (PCAT-AS) was used to measure the quality of primary care services. PCAT-AS assesses each of the unique characteristics of primary care including first contact, continuity, comprehensiveness, coordination, family-centeredness, community orientation, culture orientation. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews held from July to November, 2015. Covariate analysis and multivariate Linear Regression were adopted to explore the effect of contract on the quality of primary care by controlling for the socio-demographic status and health care service utilization factors.ResultsA total of 828 valid questionnaires were collected. Among the interviewees, 453 patients signed the contract (54.7%) and 375 did not (45.3%). Multivariate linear regression showed that contracted patients reported higher scores in dimensions of PCAT total score (β = − 8.98, P < 0.000), first contact-utilization(β = − 0.71,P < 0.001), first contact-accessibility(β = − 1.49, P < 0.001), continuity (β = 1.27, P < 0.001), coordination (referral) (β = − 1.42, P < 0.001), comprehensiveness (utilization) (β = − 1.70, P < 0.001), comprehensiveness (provision) (β = − 0.99, P < 0.001),family-centeredness(β = − 0.52, P < 0.01), community orientation(β = − 1.78, P < 0.001), than un- contracted after controlling socio-demographic and service utilization factors. There were no statistically significant differences in the dimensions of coordination (information system) (β = − 0.25, P = 0.137) and culture orientation (β = − 0.264, P = 0.056) between the two both groups.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that the pilot implementation of family doctor contract services has significantly improved patients’ perceived primary care quality in the pilot cities, and could help solve the quality problem of primary care. It needs further promotion across the province.

Material Culture of the Rural Suburb Population of the Medieval Kyiv

As a result of large-scale excavations of a few unfortified settlements next to the capital city along with the previously received materials from studying the same category of archaeological sites, quite a huge amount of data has been collected that is fully sufficient in order to provide characteristic of material and some elements of spiritual culture of the population of the mentioned socio-economic formations. Most of the researched settlements were bound to sources of water supply. In the area where it was possible to trace whithin configuration of the excavations (Sofiivska Borshchahivka), there were traced streets planning and formation of the farmstead constructions. At some places certain traditions of inside constructions’ layout and general features of housebuilding are noticed. The studied houses are deepened in the ground, in some cases on basements; to the living quarter sometimes was adjacent a lobby-entrance. At Sofiivska Borshchahivka village, two-chamber dwelling with floor in the living part was investigated; at Teremky settlement — a single-chamber dwelling with floor laid on the pegs pounded into the ground. The stove was placed by the entrance and directed towards it. In addition to the dwellings household constructions were found. The livestock farming is marked by the construction for fattening pigs at Khodosivka-Roslavske, the agriculture — by pits for grains at Sofiivska Borshchahivka. The main production facilities of ironmakers (Kremenyshche, Hodosivka-Kozakiv Yar), amber processing specialists (Khodosivka-Roslavske), specialists in pyrolysis of wood as well as subsidiary production facilities — woodworkers (Khodosivka-Roslavske), stoneworkers (Sofiivska Borshchahivka) and etc. were excavated. Tools of soil cultivation, harvesting and processing of the crop testify the developed agriculture, while spit and fetters clasps — developed livestock; special arrowheads — hunting; awn, fishing nets sinkers, hooks — fishing; hazel nutshells — gathering. The population was also engaged in gathering spice plants, dyes, fibers, fruits, mushrooms, berries, and, based on the natural conditions and modern documents — probably also in wild-honey farming. Tools and various facilities indicate spinning, weaving, manufacturing and repairing of shoes and clothing, while some tools, and unfinished items, production waste indicate metalworking. Artifacts of bones carving, woodworking tools, and findings indicating development of other industries are also recorded. In the collection we have a wide representation of household items, jewelry and details of a costume, amulets of pagan cults and those items of special piety of Christians with items of the temple service. Many elements of weapons, military equipment and equipment of a rider and a battle horse were collected. In addition to ceramic tableware, among which are products with glaze, sophisticated tableware, etc., fragments of glass tableware and metal pan were recorded. Some of jewelry items and insignia of the Orthodox worship not only reflect trade and cultural ties, but also characterize the perception of space by the population. The results of the excavations not only show that the information resource of rural sites is not yet exhausted, they not only emphasize the extraordinary nature of the material culture of the settlement Khodosivka-Roslavske even in comparison with neighboring locations, but also serve as an additional argument in favor of considering the sites of the capital suburbs as a separate social-economic and cultural formation.

Understanding homophily of service failure within the hotel guest cycle: Applying NLP-aspect-based sentiment analysis to the hospitality industry

• This study applies the supervised learning approach (Natural Language Processing, NLP-Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis) and attempts to understand the potential differences in online behavioral tendencies between Asian and non-Asian guests who encounter service failures within the hotel guest cycle. • The empirical research data derived from a total of 390,236 online complaint terms posted about 353 hotels in the UK by hotel guests from 63 nations. • With consideration given to the homophily theory, the study argued that Asian and non-Asian guests would exhibit both similarities and differences with respect to the various items of service failures they encountered within the hotel guest cycle. • This study contributes to the existing literature in the field of hotel guest satisfaction attributes, with special reference to the novel application of the methodology, as well as the new findings it presents on the differences in perceptions of service failures among guests with different cultures of origins. Online complaints have become increasingly influential on the purchasing behavior of customers in recent years. In an effort analyze large quantities of textual complaints and detail the various aspects of them, Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis was looked to as an ideal framework to take on the task. This study set out to synthesize specific service failure items and categorize them into the groupings related to the hotel guest cycle and the corresponding operations, then compare the patterns of expression used by Asian and Non-Asian guests as the related their hotel experiences. A total of 390,236 online complaint terms posted about 353 hotels in the UK by hotel guests from 63 nations were manually derived from TripAdvisor for analysis. With consideration given to the homophily theory, we posited that Asian and non-Asian guests would exhibit similarities and differences with respect to the service failures they encountered when presented with various items of service. The results confirmed this as Asian guests were shown to encounter more service failures with respect to the engineering segment of operations (e.g. hotel room equipment issues), while non-Asian guests encountered more service failures on the housekeeping end of operations (e.g. toilets, public areas, cleanliness, and bedding). By organizing the failures according the four stages of the guest cycle, it was observed that approximately 80% of the service failures occurred during the occupancy period. This study contributes to the existing literature on hotel guest satisfaction both with respect to the methodology it uses and the new findings it presents on differences in perceptions of service failures members among different cultures.

Developing a smart system with Industry 4.0 for customer dissatisfaction

PurposeThis paper develops a smart system based on the concept of Industry 4.0 to prevent customer dissatisfaction. The value of this prevention system is that it enables hoteliers to interact with customers by understanding what they like/dislike from their behaviors via data analysis. Therefore, this system helps hoteliers to enhance service quality by predicting service issues.Design/methodology/approachThe system, named the dissatisfaction identification system (DIS), is developed. A total of 127 service items were examined by a hotel manager who preset the threshold values for the measurement of service quality. A big data set for the questionnaire survey is statistically generated by a pseudorandom number generator and 10,000 mock data sets are taken as input for comparison.FindingsThe results indicated that 36 out of 127 service items are identified as service issues for the participating hotel. Examples include customer code number 01d, “Space of parking lot is adequate” in the safety management category, and number 05a, “A hotel's service time meets my needs” in the front office service category. The items identified require improvement action plans for preventing customer dissatisfaction.Originality/valueThis paper offers a new perspective paper emphasizing customer dissatisfaction using a big data-driven technology system. The DIS, prevention system, is developed to aid hotels by enhancing their relationships with customers using a data-driven approach.

Research on the Payment Method of Medical Insurance—A Case Study of Chiping County in Liaocheng City

Since the reform and opening up, medical insurance system in China has made great achievements. As the focus and difficulty of medical insurance management and reform, the payment method of medical insurance has attracted increasing attention. Based on the semi-structured interview data of chiping county, the status quo and development trend of the payment method of medical insurance in China are discussed. It is found that the current payment method of medical insurance in China is mainly based on the payment by service items, which belongs to post payment system. The development trend of payment method is changing from single payment method to mixed payment method, changing from post payment system to prospective payment system, emphasizing and promoting payment by disease type and increasing the application of diagnosis related groups-prospective payment system. Late payment and insufficient payment restrict the payment method from post payment system to prospective payment system. The payment method of medical insurance determines the level of medical expenses, the flow of medical resources, the income of medical institutions and the quality of medical services, which will be one of the key factors affecting the success or failure of medical insurance system in China.

Effective public service delivery supported by time-decayed Bayesian personalized ranking

Information overload is becoming a prominent problem that hinders the effectiveness of e-government. Personalized e-government services with recommendation techniques may provide a solution by helping users find the target service items based on her interaction histories. Most existing e-government recommendation methods are rating based, but the ratings in e-government are unavailable. Besides, the interactions in e-government are sequence-dependent while the sequential information are usually ignored. These two problems negatively affect the efficiency of the service distribution of e-government platforms. In this paper, we studied the sequential implicit feedback recommendation problem in e-government and design a novel learning algorithm called time-decayed Bayesian personalized ranking. Time-decayed BPR captures the sequence effects using time-decayed Ordinal Utility and inherits the seminal pairwise learning framework of BPR. It digests users’ sequential behavior naturally, and combines the benefits of time-aware information (i.e. sequential behavior) and time-invariant information (i.e. general taste). An empirical analysis of real-world e-government datasets shows that our time-decayed-BPR approach improves the performance significantly regarding various evaluation metrics compared with the state-of-the-art baseline methods.

Involvement of Social Workers in the Community Service Provision System for the Older People in Urban China

ABSTRACT Using Guangdong Province as the focus for this research, this article explores the role and functions of social work services in the elderly care system, and then analyses the relationship between social work services and family care services in urban China. The research found that social workers are confronted with challenges when providing culturally sensitive services, indicating a need for them to further develop their capacity to interpret service items and service provision procedures for older adults and family members. IMPLICATIONS In China, social workers should focus on the impact of filial piety on older adults who are clients of community service programs. At the initial stage of service provision, social workers may need to exert considerable effort to interpret service items and service provision procedures for older adults and family members. In Australia and other countries, where social workers often work with elderly Chinese immigrants and their families, familiarity with the concept of filial piety may be important.