Debris removal during disaster response: A case for Turkey

Debris occurs from the ruin and wreckage of structures during a disaster. Proper removal of debris is of great importance because it blocks roads and prohibits emergency aid teams from accessing disaster-affected regions. Poor disaster management, lack of efficiency and delays in debris removal cause disruptions in providing shelter, nutrition, healthcare and communication services to disaster victims, and more importantly, result in loss of lives. Due to the importance of systematic and efficient debris removal from the perspectives of improving disaster victims quality of life and allowing the transportation of emergency relief materials, the focus of this study is on providing emergency relief supplies to disaster-affected regions as soon as possible by unblocking roads through removing the accumulated debris. We develop a mathematical model for the problem that requires long CPU times for large instances. Since it is crucial to act quickly in an emergency case, we also propose a heuristic methodology that solves instances with an average gap of 1% and optimum ratio of 80.83%.     

An applied stochastic model of the quality–quantity trade-off in the public health care sector

It is a striking feature of the many of the developing country public service sectors that the sectors in question often overproduce the quantity of services but underproduce the quality. This feature, which is exemplified in this paper, is rooted in a wide spectrum of economic and sociological factors ranging from the economic and sociological profile of the service receiving people to the asymmetric density of service-receiving population across their regions. This feature, we conjecture, is a source of a considerable degree of suboptimality in some of the developing countries. If our conjecture is correct, correcting such suboptimalities is likely to yield significant welfare improvements that could help speed up the process of development in the underdeveloped regions of the world. To analyze the supoopimalites in question, we will first develop a concept (and a model) of optimal quality in the public service sector, which indicates the level of quality that maximizes expected public satisfaction subject to available resources. Resources are used in an efficient manner to produce the service in question. The concept and the model in the paper make a needed contribution to the quality discourse by presenting a way of determining the quality improvements (or adjustments) necessary to achieve optimum in the public service sector. The paper presents an application (a case study) of this new concept in the public healthcare sector in Turkey, and explores the differences between the actual and optimal quality in the sector in question. It turns out that there is a considerable difference between the actual and optimal levels of quality (as well as those of quantity) in the Turkish public healthcare sector in an overpopulated city (Istanbul), indicating a significant overproduction of quantity and underproduction of quality. Thus, to achieve the optimal levels, the sector should increase quality and reduce quantity by a considerable margin. The quantified differences (gaps) between actual and optimal levels point out a considerable room for welfare improvement. Optimum-seeking adjustments closing these gaps could be shown to lead to considerable satisfaction and welfare gains, the measurement of which is worthy of future research.     

新型城镇化背景下异地城镇化的特征及趋势

目前,我国城镇化水平仍然滞后工业化,区域城镇化发展不平衡.其中,城镇化过程中低质量的“异地城镇化”现象非常明显.在城镇化加速发展时期,如何保持“城镇化数量与城镇化质量”的健康协调发展,缩小区域城镇化差距,提高后发地区域镇化质量,具有十分重要的意义.本文以湖北省为例,针对“异地城镇化”的特点和问题,重点探索新时期“异地城...     

Innovation, progress, entrepreneurship and cultural aspects

In the case of economic progress, some of the literature has considered economic growth and economic progress to be the same thing. However, there is a relevant difference between the two concepts. As Holcombe states, economic growth considers the quantity of products and economic progress the quality of products. Innovation has been considered as a key factor to promote economic progress. A culture would have a direct and an indirect effect on innovation through entrepreneurship. The goal of this paper is to analyze the relationship between culture and innovation. To carry out this study, an empirical estimation has been developed for the case of 11 countries.     

Screening the impacts of municipal service policy changes

The planning of municipal service delivery systems requires accurate forecasts of demand, and particularly of the effects the quality of service delivery has on demand. A metholology for this problem should meet three criteria, if it is to be useful for municipal planning: it must be low-cost and use generally available data; it must be based on user behavior, so that the effects of policy changes can be correctly attributed; and it must allow testing of the transferability of the results, since this is required for general forecasting use. This paper develops such a methodology, based on econometric analysis of data from a number of service areas within a number of regions, forming a double cross-section. Empirical tests of the methodology were performed for two local government services where the effect of service quality on demand is important: sewer and highway construction, which have been hypothesized to affect the patterns of development within regions; and solid waste collection, where the level of service provided affects how much waste enters the collection system and how much is littered, burned or recycled. The two case studies and other analyses suggest that the methodology is a useful tool for testing whether policy changes have an effect on the demand for service, but not for accurate demand forecasting. Thus, these simple models are relevant for the role of screening the effect of policy changes, but more detailed and localized approaches are necessary for system design.     

MODELING THE ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF IRRIGATION WATER SUPPLY IN DRY AND HUMID REGIONS

This paper tests the economic efficiency of irrigation water as supplied by single purpose and by general purpose public utilities in dry and humid regions, respectively, in terms of underprovision and overprovision. The proposed methodology mixes conceptual frameworks developed by Farrell (1957) and Brueckner (1979, 1982) . A typical agricultural production function uses the institutional attributes of the water-providing authority as an argument. Both short-run and long-run estimates are provided. Although in both cases irrigation water is heavily subsidized, there is no evidence of systematic underprovision or overprovision for the dry north and west, under the single purpose Irrigation Authority. However, water is oversupplied to more humid areas by the general purpose Central Water Authority. Empirical estimates confirm that the efficiency of the single purpose Irrigation Authority cannot be attributed to irrigation technique. The general purpose Water Authority suffers from inefficiency in coordinating rainwater availability with the institutional water supply.     

The global economic costs of the need to treat polluted water

We estimate the global costs and other implications of the need to treat wastewater before it can be re-used. We extend the World Trade Model by creating water treatment sectors and provide alternative sources of water for satisfying users’ quantity and quality requirements. The database distinguishes qualities and quantities of water endowments, sectoral water requirements, and wastewater discharges. We estimate that global water treatment costs could be reduced by several trillion dollars if water endowments were maintained at higher quality than currently is the case. Under scenarios where water quality degrades further, the treatment costs more than double even without taking account of likely increases in quality requirements. This modeling framework provides a starting point not only for more detailed empirical investigations of water management strategies, but also for examining prospects and associated costs for recovering other resources, such as metals, which can be reused multiple times.     

An empirical investigation of water consumption forecasting methods

Many regions on earth face daily limitations in the quantity and quality of the water resources available. As a result, it is necessary to implement reliable methodologies for water consumption forecasting that will enable the better management and planning of water resources. This research analyses, for the first time, a large database containing data from 2 million water meters in 274 unique postal codes, in one of the most densely populated areas of Europe, which faces issues of droughts and overconsumption in the hot summer months. Using the R programming language, we built and tested three alternative forecasting methodologies, employing univariate forecasting techniques including a machine-learning algorithm, with very promising results.     

Competitive subsidization in regional development

This paper uses a game-theoretic bidding model to analyze the process in which regional areas attract new companies by offering subsidies. It is shown that this is not a ‘negative-sum game’, and that companies tend to locate in those regions for which they have the greatest value. A constructive methodology for quantifying the value of the firm to a region including both direct and indirect benefits is developed. A non-cooperative equilibrium bidding strategy is developed for competing regions which expands on some of the behavioral conclusions in Hands and Mann (1987). Dependent value estimates by the regions and the region's attitudes toward risk are shown to influence optimal bidding strategies for new companies.     

The Industrial Training Act and the hotel and catering industry: a case study*

The 1964 Industrial Training Act had three main aims. The first was a quantity objective, aimed at obtaining “an adequate supply of properly trained men and women at all levels in industry” second was a quality and efficiency objective, aimed at securing “an improvement in the quality and efficiency of industrial training” and the third was an equity objective, designed to “share the costs of training more evenly between firms”. In general, the Act attempted to achieve these objectives through Industrial Training Boards with their levy-grant systems and advisory services. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a case study which examined the effects of the 1964 Act on training in the hotel and catering industry. The methodology used will be outlined and then the results will be presented and interpreted. Some evidence will be provided on the extent to which the objectives of the Act have been achieved.     

Transportation rates, market structure and the production-location decision : A note

This note examines the effects of market structure on production and location decisions of an oligopolistic firm. It shows that if transportation rates are a function of quantity shipped and distance traveled, a linearly homogeneous production function is not sufficient to ensure independence between the optimum location and market structure unless (i) the elasticities of transportation rates with respect to quantity shipped are constant and identical, and (ii) the ratios of marginal products to the marginal transportation costs are equal for each input. This results is significantly different from Hwang and Mai's in the constant transportation rates case.     

Measurement of development and regional disparities in Greek periphery: A multivariate approach

The identification of regional disparities and regional growth patterns is an important factor affecting policy formulation. Single indicator, usually GDP-based, approaches have revealed significant shortcomings. In this work we provide a methodology and the respective tools to analyse regional disparities and development patterns. Aiming at capturing the different aspects of development and quality of life our approach is multi-dimensional: we, first, develop a composite index; we, then, apply multivariate clustering for identifying regions with similar socio-economic profiles. The methodology is applied to examine Greek regions. The results do not provide strong evidence for convergence of Greek regions during the period 1995–2007.     

A two-period newsvendor model for prepositioning with a post-disaster replenishment using Bayesian demand update

Humanitarian aid agencies usually resort to inventory prepositioning to mitigate the impact of disasters by sending emergency supplies to the affected area as quickly as possible. However, a lack of replenishment opportunity after a disaster can greatly hamper the effectiveness of the relief operation due to uncertainty in demand. In this paper, a prepositioning problem is formulated as a two-period newsvendor model where the response phase is divided into two periods. The model acknowledges the demand to be uncertain even after the disaster and utilises the Bayesian approach to revise the demand of the second period. Based on the revised demand, an order is placed at the beginning of the second period to be replenished instantaneously. A two-stage solution methodology is proposed to find the prepositioning quantity and post-disaster replenishment quantity, which minimise the total expected costs of relief operations. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the solution methodology, and sensitivity analysis is performed to examine the effect of model parameters. The results highlight the indifferent characteristics shown by the replenishment quantity with the variation in model parameters.     

Occupational choice: Teacher quality versus teacher quantity

This article examines the relationship between skill-biased technological changes and the decline in both teacher quality and pupil–teacher ratio—called the “quality–quantity trade-off”—in the United States and other advanced economies during the past several decades. The study presents a theory of educational production that emphasizes teachers’ occupational choices. A key assumption is that talented agents have a comparative advantage in learning. The model endogenously generates a teachers sector with intermediate abilities between two types of skilled workers with tertiary education: highly skilled workers and vocational workers. This unique feature helps specify which technological changes may lead to quality–quantity trade-offs. In particular, a crucial element is that the ratio of incomes and thus the income inequality rises within the skilled sector. In this case, the most talented teachers depart from the teachers sector to join the highly skilled sector, and as such, teacher quality declines. In other cases, both teacher quality and teacher quantity may increase. The results are consistent with the observed patterns of technology, educational attainment, educational expenditure, and wage inequality in advanced economies. Finally, another potential cause for the quality–quantity trade-off is a reduction in teacher certification requirement unless the reduction is implemented exclusively on high-ability workers.     

中国城市聚集经济实证分析:以天津市为例

聚集经济在城市经济及区域经济研究中占核心地位,它直接体现城市及区域空间结构的经济效率以及竞争力.本研究利用卡利诺模型来对1987年至2001年期间天津市聚集经济进行实证检验.其分析结果表明:在1990年至1994年间天津市呈现出正的聚集经济效应;在1996年至2001年期间呈现出负的聚集经济效应,就是聚集不经济;最近五年聚集经济呈现出上升趋势,相当靠近于1,2001年的聚集经济系数为0.984.本研究的分析结果表明,以工业为主的天津市城市经济效应并不明显,但是,最近天津市工业的总体效应是较良好的,即将能够创造出一些空间外部经济效应.     

制造业与生产性服务业协同集聚能否提升城市专利质量？

产业协同集聚与融合发展已成为带动地区创新发展的重要手段。研究测度了制造业与生产性服务业协同集聚度与城市专利质量水平,并实证检验了协同集聚带来的城市专利质量提升效应及其影响机制,结果表明：制造业与生产性服务业协同集聚能提升城市专利质量水平。产业协同集聚是促进地区创新的空间前提条件。主要影响机制的探讨表明,知识外部性溢出与分工深化是导致城市专利质量提升的主要中介渠道,但创新成果转化加速的中介提升机制尚不明晰。分地区看,相比于欠发达地区,发达地区产业协同集聚更能促进城市专利质量提升;分行业看,制造业与金融业、科研综合技术服务业、水利环境和公共设施管理业的协同集聚所带来的城市专利质量提升效应更加明显。目前中国整体上制造业与生产性服务业协同集聚存在的不充分、不平衡发展的问题是促进城市专利质量提升的主要障碍。     

Index Number Theory Using Differences Rather Than Ratios

A bstract    Traditional index number theory decomposes a value ratio into the product of a price index times a quantity index. The price (quantity) index is interpreted as an aggregate price (quantity) ratio. The present paper takes an alternative approach to index number theory, started by Bennet and Montgomery in the 1920s, which decomposes a value difference into the sum of a price difference plus a quantity difference. Axiomatic and economic approaches to this alternative branch of index theory are considered in the present paper. The analysis presented has some relevance to accounting theory in which revenue, cost, or profit changes need to be decomposed into price quantity components or where standard or budgeted performance is compared with actual performance (variance analysis). The methodology presented in the paper is also relevant for consumer surplus analysis.     

Hospital service quality evaluation with IVIF-PROMETHEE and a case study

Measuring satisfaction of patients and understanding their perceptions are important for the hospital management to respond to customers' growing demands for acceptable quality of healthcare services. The main purpose of this paper is to present a methodology that can be used in the healthcare service quality evaluation. IVIF-PROMETHEE method is applied for service quality evaluation based on patients' views in a real-life case study of a public hospital in Istanbul and the results are compared with the results from IVIF-TOPSIS method. Interval Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IVIF) set is considered an appropriate tool because of the complexity and vagueness of the evaluation of healthcare services. The evaluation of the quality level of the healthcare service provides detailed information about the effects of considered criteria as well as creates opportunities in implementing effective procedures to overcome service quality problems via analysing the patients' views. The proposed methodology can be a useful tool for hospital management.     

A case study on the application of Fuzzy QFD in TRIZ for service quality improvement

The improvement of service quality so as to enhance customer satisfaction has been widely mentioned over the past few decades. However, a creative and systematic way of achieving higher customer satisfaction in terms of service quality is rarely discussed. Recently, TRIZ, a Russian acronym which means “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving,” has been proven to be a well-structured and innovative way to solve problems in both technical and non-technical areas. In this study, a systematic model based on the TRIZ methodology is proposed to generate creative solutions for service quality improvement. This is done by examining first the determinants of service quality based on a comprehensive qualitative study in the electronic commerce sector. Then the correlation between the imprecise requirements from customers and the determinants of service quality is analyzed with Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment (QFD) in order to identify the critical determinants relating to customer satisfaction. After which, the corresponding TRIZ engineering parameters can be effectively applied in the TRIZ contradiction matrix to identify the inventive principles. A case study is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in an e-commerce company, and its results are presented to show the applicability of the TRIZ methodology in the e-service sector.     

A Quality Information Benchmarking Methodology: A US Banking Industry Empirical Study

Information is itself a product that customers and staff in any organization consume. Like any product the quality of information can be measured and compared in most industries. This paper presents an application of an information quality measuring methodology adapted and applied for the first time in the US banking industry. An empirical study is used to attest to the informational efficacy of the methodology. Results of the study reveal that the proposed methodology can be used to identify quality differences between differing banking institutions and differing dimensions of information quality as well as a quality benchmarking procedure.