Efficiency in the provision of social care for older people. A three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis using self-reported quality of life

Using a three-stage data envelopment analysis approach, this paper explores efficiency in the provision of social care for older people in 148 English Councils in 2009/10. Departing from D'Amico and Fernández (2012) [31] our measure of efficiency is inscribed within the production of welfare framework and based on self-reported quality of life of recipients of the services. Our results indicate a high level of efficiency, but once we control for the effects of a number of environmental variables, we found that more stringent eligibility criteria and higher assessment costs are negatively associated with the efficiency in the provision of social services.     

Applying LSA text mining technique in envisioning social impacts of emerging technologies: The case of drone technology

This research proposes a novel method of identifying and understanding the holistic overview of emerging technologies’ unintended consequences. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) text mining technique is employed to yield multiple groups of contextually similar terms from future-oriented data sources, comprising both experts’ and the public's concerns regarding future technologies. Resulting term clusters are considered as new abstractions, or so-called scenarios, of future social impacts. Furthermore, the study acquires greater depth and breadth in conceptualizing social impacts through considering condition- and value-related terms as key linking factors to previous social impact-related literature. Our proposed methodology seeks to gain insights into the utilization of future-oriented data sources for the foresight activity, hoping to mitigate public skepticism and pursue a better social acceptance of emerging technologies.     

Consumer avoidance of specially priced items during social coupon redemption

Social coupons (SCs) (e.g., Groupon) differ from traditional or regular coupons (RCs) in that they require consumers to make a prepayment to receive substantive discounts. As the general rule of SCs prohibits double-promotion, SC consumers tend to engage in certain avoidance behaviors when experiencing another promotion (i.e., specially priced for selected items). The results across two scenario-based experiments reveal that SC consumers (vs. RC consumers) have a greater tendency to avoid specially priced items when redeeming a coupon for hedonic consumptions, but not for utilitarian consumptions. Such avoidance is due to one’s motivation to minimize the perception of deal waste.     

“Development strategies at station areas in southwestern China: The case of Mianyang city”

This paper analyses the possibilities for implementing a TOD model around a railway station in Mianyang City, in southwestern China, through a Node-Place model to determine the potential for developing the areas around railway stations to foster a sustainable economic and urban development. For this purpose, the implementation of a TOD model means an interesting sustainable way for smart growth, whose successful implementation will strongly depend on the context, where the Growth Pole Theory is being implemented through the Western Development Strategy to strengthen the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone. The Hukou system (household registration) and the current rapid urbanization and motorization trends are featuring the economic growth, creating inequities among urban population, informal settlements and problems in the accessibility of low-income residents. Therefore, not only does it lead to an analysis of the most important station areas in northeastern Sichuan Province but also of the socio-economic trends of one of the most underdeveloped regions of the country, yet with a high potential to be developed. Consequently, the real situation of the Northeast of Sichuan province is studied through fieldworks which complement the lack of reliable information, determining the most suitable features for achieving the best urban planning solution.     

A case study: The impact of low-cost carriers on inbound tourism of Saudi Arabia

This study investigates the impact of low-cost carriers (LCCs) on Saudi Arabia's tourism demand. It also provides an understanding of the relationship between air transport development and tourism development in the Gulf region. The Box–Jenkins SARIMA-X models were employed to model and forecast international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia, using monthly international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia from July 2010 to December 2015. The forecasting models were significantly accurate, with lower values of MAPE, MAP, and RMSE. The findings suggest that an increase in airline capacity, religious travel, and airline competition are associated with the increasing international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia. This also indicates that there is a positive relationship between air transport development and tourism development. Further aviation liberalisation in the Gulf region is discussed to give opportunities for the region's LCCs to increase their share of the increasing air travel demand, thereby enhancing tourism development.     

The forthcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution: Its impact on society and firms

The impact of the industrial and digital (information) revolutions has, undoubtedly, been substantial on practically all aspects of our society, life, firms and employment. Will the forthcoming AI revolution produce similar, far-reaching effects? By examining analogous inventions of the industrial, digital and AI revolutions, this article claims that the latter is on target and that it would bring extensive changes that will also affect all aspects of our society and life. In addition, its impact on firms and employment will be considerable, resulting in richly interconnected organizations with decision making based on the analysis and exploitation of “big” data and intensified, global competition among firms. People will be capable of buying goods and obtaining services from anywhere in the world using the Internet, and exploiting the unlimited, additional benefits that will open through the widespread usage of AI inventions. The paper concludes that significant competitive advantages will continue to accrue to those utilizing the Internet widely and willing to take entrepreneurial risks in order to turn innovative products/services into worldwide commercial success stories. The greatest challenge facing societies and firms would be utilizing the benefits of availing AI technologies, providing vast opportunities for both new products/services and immense productivity improvements while avoiding the dangers and disadvantages in terms of increased unemployment and greater wealth inequalities.     

Socially optimal replacement of conventional with electric vehicles for the US household fleet

In this study, a framework is proposed for minimizing the societal cost of replacing gas-powered household passenger cars with battery electric ones (BEVs). The societal cost consists of operational costs of heterogeneous driving patterns' cars, government investments for charging deployment, and monetized environmental externalities. The optimization framework determines the timeframe needed for conventional vehicles to be replaced with BEVs. It also determines the BEVs driving range during the planning timeframe, as well as the density of public chargers deployed on a linear transportation network over time. We leverage data sets that represent US household driving patterns, as well as the automobile and the energy markets, to apply the model. Results indicate that it takes 8 years for 80% of our conventional vehicle sample to be replaced with electric vehicles, under the base case scenario. The socially optimal all-electric driving range is 204 miles, with chargers placed every 172 miles on a linear corridor. All public chargers should be deployed at the beginning of the planning horizon to achieve greater savings over the years. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the timeframe for the socially optimal conversion of 80% of the sample varies from 6 to 12 years. The optimal decision variables are sensitive to battery pack and vehicle body cost, gasoline cost, the discount rate, and conventional vehicles' fuel economy. Faster conventional vehicle replacement is achieved when the gasoline cost increases, electricity cost decreases, and battery packs become cheaper over the years.     

Psychological safety climate and workplace bullying in Vietnam’s public sector

The bureaucratic and impersonal nature of public management can fertilize workplace bullying and risks for psychological health and safety. Psychological safety climate (PSC) is an important indicator to reduce psychological hazards. Yet, there have been few studies conducted to examine the existence of PSC in the public sector in non-Western economies. This study examined the implementation of PSC and its effects on 274 employees from six branches of a Vietnamese public sector organization. The results suggest that senior management in organizations should consider positive work conditions and an effective system of policies, procedures, and practices for the prevention of psychosocial hazards.     

防恶意干扰的VANET双群联合定位算法

传统的无线定位方法直接应用于车辆自组织网络(VANET)时，会被窃听方利用定位信息，从而导致严重的安全隐患。为此，提出基于Bancroft方法的双群组合定位算法,用于保障车辆自组织网络中车辆定位的安全性和准确性。算法利用两个群组的智能车辆节点分别进行定位，利用两组解分别反求伪距值，如果所获得的伪距值与经过节点钟差修正后的原始伪距值基本一致，则认为这一组解为最终的定位结果，从而保证了定位的正确性。同时，双群定位的信息分散性保证了系统整体的安全性。理论分析及算法仿真表明,双群联合定位算法可使窃听方的误码率稳定在较高水平。     

Major Psychological Factors Affecting Acceptance of New Breeding Techniques for Crops

New plant biotechnologies called new breeding techniques (NBT), which will follow the present genetically modified (GM) technology, have appeared and are attracting attention worldwide. The first purpose of this study was to show consumer attitudes toward traditional plant breeding, GM, and NBT crops. The second purpose was to verify the validity of a psychological model determining the acceptance of NBT crops. A survey was conducted in Japan with 657 randomly selected adult participants. The results showed that perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust, sense of bioethics, anxiety, and anger play an important role in the personal and public acceptance of NBT and indicated that trust and anxiety are especially important factors in both situations.