Service quality at the London 2012 Games – a Paralympics Athletes Survey

Purpose – This paper reports on aspects of service quality at the London 2012 Paralympic Games,from a rather unusual perspective, the athletes. To date there has been little evidence captured about athlete’s satisfaction at sporting events, and specifically about their perceptions of the service quality provided. Design/methodology/approach – Unique ‘full’ access to the London 2012 Paralympics allowed to the collection of data directly from the athletes. The study reports the questionnaire findings from a sample of 250 respondents. Findings – From this study an operational assessment and performance framework has been generated composed of 10 criteria and 73 items or sub-criteria, which can be used as a benchmarking tool to plan, design and compare future sport mega-event. Moreover, the study evidence based the high quality of the 2012 Paralympics Games, as he athletes rated, on a 5 point Likert scale, 64 items in the ‘very satisfied’ category, a very positive set of feedback for the Games organisers. Research limitations/implications – The methodology applied was appropriate, generating data to facilitate discussion and draw specific conclusions from. A perceived limitation is the single case approach; however, this can be enough to add to the body of knowledge where very little evidence has been captured so far and where the objectives were to explore the Paralympics games service quality and performance. Practical implications – This research provides a tangible evidence base to support future sport event decision-makers, planners and designers in this highly complex ‘arena’. In any system, there are always areas for improvement (AFIs), these are highlighted within the paper for further investigation. Originality/value – This is the first paper to identify and synthesize aspects of sport mega event service quality from the athletes viewpoint and informs how well designed, organised and managed the London 2012 Games were from a primary user perspective. The paper makes a defined contribution by developing evidence based recommendations for this important yet under researched area

Action Selection for Interaction Management: Opportunities and Lessons for Automated Planning

The central problem in automated planning---action selection---is also a primary topic in the dialogue systems research community, however, the nature of research in that community is significantly different from that of planning, with a focus on end-to-end systems and user evaluations. In particular, numerous toolkits are available for developing speech-based dialogue systems that include not only a method for representing states and actions, but also a mechanism for reasoning and selecting the actions, often combined with a technical framework designed to simplify the task of creating end-to-end systems. We contrast this situation with that of automated planning, and argue that the dialogue systems community could benefit from some of the directions adopted by the planning community, and that there also exist opportunities and lessons for automated planning

Examination of Regional Transit Service Under Contracting: A Case Study in the Greater New Orleans Region, Research Report 10-09

Many local governments and transit agencies in the United States face financial difficulties in providing adequate public transit service in individual systems, and in providing sufficient regional coordination to accommodate transit trips involving at least one transfer between systems. These difficulties can be attributed to the recent economic downturn, continuing withdrawal of the state and federal funds that help support local transit service, a decline in local funding for transit service in inner cities due to ongoing suburbanization, and a distribution of resources that responds to geographic equity without addressing service needs. This study examines two main research questions: (1) the effect of a “delegated management” contract on efficiency and effectiveness within a single transit system, and (2) the effects of a single private firm—contracted separately by more than one agency in the same region—on regional coordination, exploring the case in Greater New Orleans. The current situation in New Orleans exhibits two unique transit service conditions. First, New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) executed a “delegated management” contract with a multinational private firm, outsourcing more functions (e.g., management, planning, funding) to the contractor than has been typical in the U.S. Second, as the same contractor has also been contracted by another transit agency in an adjacent jurisdiction—Jefferson Transit (JeT), this firm may potentially have economic incentives to improve regional coordination, in order to increase the productivity and effectiveness of its own transit service provision. Although the limited amount of available operation and financial data has prevented us from drawing more definitive conclusions, the findings of this multifaceted study should provide valuable information on a transit service contracting approach new to the U.S.: delegated management. This study also identified a coherent set of indices with which to evaluate the regional coordination of transit service, the present status of coordination among U.S. transit agencies, and barriers that need to be resolved for regional transit coordination to be successful

Spartan Daily, October 14, 1981

Volume 77, Issue 30https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6806/thumbnail.jp

SME Development in Malaysia: Domestic and Global Challenges

The primary objectives of this paper are to analyze and discuss the development of Malaysian SMEs and their role, as well as various contributions, in the national economy. The paper goes further by reviewing extant literature to identify the major challenges facing this sector in Malaysia as well as government policies aimed at the development of SMEs. We find that, while the government has implemented many programs to strengthen the performance of SMEs in the economy, Malaysian SMEs still face many challenges, both domestic and external, which could hinder their resilience and competitiveness. A number of strategies which could assist them to access new markets, increase their revenues and expand their customer bases are identified.Malaysian economy, Malaysian SMEs, government assistance programs

Reduced graphene oxide-multiwalled carbon nanotubes hybrid film with low Pt loading as counter electrode for improved photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitised solar cells

In this work, the role of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with hyperbranched surfactant and its hybridisation with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and platinum (Pt) nanoparticles (NPs) as counter electrode (CE) were investigated to determine the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). Sodium 1,4-is(neopentyloxy)-3-(neopentyloxycarbonyl)- 1,4-dioxobutane-2-sulphonate (TC14) surfactant was utilised as dispersing and stabilising agent in electrochemical exfoliation to synthesise graphene oxide (GO) as initial solution for rGO production prior to its further hybridisation and fabrication as thin film. A chemical reduction process utilising hydrazine hydrate was conducted to produce rGO due to the low temperature process and water-based GO solution. Subsequently, hybrid solution was prepared by mixing 1 wt% MWCNTs into the produced rGO solution. TC14-rGO and TC14-rGO_MWCNTs hybrid solution were transferred into fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate to fabricate thin film by spraying deposition method. Finally, the CE films were prepared by coating with thin Pt NPs. Photoanode film was prepared by a two-step process: hydrothermal growth method to synthesise titanium dioxide nanowires (TiO2 NWs) and subsequent squeegee method to apply TiO2 NPs. According to solar simulator measurement, the highest energy conversion efficiency (η) was achieved by using CE-based TC14-rGO_MWCNTs/Pt (1.553%), with the highest short current density of 4.424 mA/cm2. The highest η was due to the high conductivity of CE hybrid film and the morphology of fabricated TiO2 NWs/TiO2 NPs. Consequently, the dye adsorption was high, and the photovoltaic performance of DSSCs was increased. This result also showed that rGO and rGO_MWCNTs hybrid can be used as considerable potential candidate materials to replace Pt gradually

Why Transition Paths Differ: Russian and Chinese Enterprise Performance Compared

We use enterprise data to analyse and compare the determinants of enterprise performance in China and Russia. We find that in China, enterprise growth and efficiency is associated with rapid increases in factor inputs including management, as well as TFP, but not greatly associated with ownership or institutional factors. In contrast, sales growth in Russia is not associated with improvements in factor quantity (except for labor) or quality; TFP is not influenced by competition and privatization to outsiders does not enhance company performance relative to insider ownership. The main determinants of TFP are instead demand and institutional factors at a regional level.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39910/3/wp525.pd

Spartan Daily, February 6, 1978

Volume 70, Issue 4https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6295/thumbnail.jp

The 2014 International Planning Competition: Progress and Trends

We review the 2014 International Planning Competition (IPC-2014), the eighth in a series of competitions starting in 1998. IPC-2014 was held in three separate parts to assess state-of-the-art in three prominent areas of planning research: the deterministic (classical) part (IPCD), the learning part (IPCL), and the probabilistic part (IPPC). Each part evaluated planning systems in ways that pushed the edge of existing planner performance by introducing new challenges, novel tasks, or both. The competition surpassed again the number of competitors than its predecessor, highlighting the competition’s central role in shaping the landscape of ongoing developments in evaluating planning systems