Customer Acceptance of Self-Service Technology at Fast Service Restaurants in Tshwane

Objective: Technological advances have prompted many businesses to introduce self-service technology (SST) to improve customer waiting times and reduce operational costs. This study aims to determine the factors linked to the acceptance of self-service technology by customers at fast-service restaurants. Research Design & Methods: This research uses a quantitative method by surveying 172 customers who had visited self-service restaurants within the preceding six months. The Unified Theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) was used to determine the factors linked to the acceptance of self-service technology at quick-service restaurants. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used for analysis. Findings: It was found that age and gender moderate the relationship between the construct: performance expectancy ratio and SST usage intention, effort expectancy and SST usage intention, social influence and usage intention and lastly, age moderates the relationship between facilitating conditions and SST usage behaviour. Contribution & Value Added: The design of future self-service technology at restaurants should be constructed in a manner that would appeal to customers of all ages and gender. An education drive should be prioritised to educate customers about the benefits of self-service while ensuring that they also understand that technology does not reduce employment but may be used to create employment in other forms. Future studies should also investigate whether technology education might have a moderating effect on technology

Imaging Protein Fibers at the Nanoscale and In Situ.

Protein self-assembly offers a rich repertoire of tools and technologies. However, despite significant progress in this area, a deterministic measure of the phenomenon, which might lead to predictable relationships between protein components, assembly mechanisms, and ultimately function, is lacking. Often the challenge relates to the choice of the most informative and precise measurements that can link the chemistry of the building blocks with the resulting assembly, ideally in situ and in real time. Using the example of protein fibrillogenesis-a self-assembly process fundamental to nearly every aspect of biological organization, from viral assembly to tissue restoration-this chapter demonstrates how protein self-assembly can be visually and precisely measured while providing measurement protocols applicable to other self-assembly systems

A real time energy management strategy for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles based on optimal control theory

Abstract Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are commonly designed to work in Charge Depleting/Charge Sustaining (CD/CS) mode, depleting the battery by driving in only-electrical mode until the SoC reaches its minimum acceptable threshold, and then sustaining the state of charge till the end of the mission, operating as a traditional hybrid vehicle. Nonetheless, a simple application of an optimal control framework suggests a blended discharge strategy, in which the powertrain is operated as to gradually deplete the SoC and reach the lower threshold only at the end of the trip. Such an algorithm has the drawback that the optimal solution can only be reached offline, depending on the a-priori knowledge of the driving event, making it unsuitable to be implemented online, as it is. The paper presents a methodology to design a heuristic controller, to be used online, based on rules extracted from the analysis of the powertrain behavior under the optimal control solution. The application is a parallel plug-in vehicle, derived from a re- engineered engine-only driven powertrain, and the optimal problem is solved with the Pontryagin's Minimum Principle. Results are also compared to the same vehicle in its standard internal combustion engine version, as well as the commonly implemented Charge Depleting/Charge Sustaining strategy

Mass treatment of trachoma with azithromycin 1.5% eye drops in the Republic of Cameroon: feasibility, tolerance and effectiveness

International audienceAn epidemiological study carried out in 2006 indicated the existence of a high prevalence of blinding trachoma in the Kolofata Health District, Far North Region, Cameroon. As a result, the national blindness control program of Cameroon instituted a trachoma elimination programme using the SAFE strategy

Media Si Odik Stocopic Untuk Mengurangi Budaya Menghafal Unsur Kimia Sistem Periodik

The background of this article is come up from the problem in chemistry learning process for senior high school exactly about the foundation of chemistry which is periodic table. The aimed of this research is to find out the influence of Si Odik Stocopic's medium to minimize the memorizing's way in periodic table chemistry material. The method that used in this research is Quasi Experiment Design with Nonequivalent Control Group Design type, with the student's group sample which is divided into control class and treatment class by random way. The research was held in even semester students of 2013-2014 during one month in private school of SMA IT Raudhatul Ulum Sakatiga, Indralaya. The result from this research is proved that using medium of Si Odik Stocopic was totally optimize the use right brain, indeed, it will increase the student's understanding, student's ability memory for chemistry lesson and also to minimize the memorizing's way in chemistry learning process

Entrainment: A domain general cognitive timing mechanism?

From an early age onwards we tend to synchronize to temporally regular and rhythmic stimuli, such as the beat in music, which inevitably leads to movement. Recently, such basic mapping of temporally regular sound and motor behavior has been critically discussed and the four speakers of this symposium will address extensions of a basic sensorimotor conceptualization of entrainment in their talks. M. Henry and colleagues discuss oscillatory entrainment in perception only, while E. Large puts to test whether oscillatory entrainment simply mirrors stimulus frequency when movement is coupled with syncopated rhythm. J. Grahn explores whether non-beat related factors impact synchronization in movement, while S. Dalla-Bella confers how stimulus complexity affects people's capacity to synchronize finger tapping but also perception. The symposium will be discussed by V. Penhune

Frequent use of emergency departments: an application to the paediatric context.

Frequent users of Emergency Departments (EDs) represent a particularly interesting category of users since they account to a small percentage of patients but they affect considerably accesses, overcrowding and the overall costs of ED activities. The literature on the topic is vast and it allows to delineate a profile of frequent users identifying socio-demographic (age, gender, nationality) and clinical (chronic diseases, drugs and alcohol abuse; psychic illnesses) risk factors. However, most of the studies on the topic limit the analysis to one-year period or to a single study site and there is no consensus on the definition of frequent use. Frequent users are generally defined as those patients reporting a number of accesses per year beyond a certain threshold. The selection of the threshold is often based on previous literature or on percentiles but the definitions vary considerably and the choice tends to be subjective. In this study, the focus will be placed on paediatric patients, with reference to which the contributions in the literature are still very limited. The objective is to identify the most important drivers of ED frequent use in the 19 EDs of Liguria region (Italy) during a three-year period (2013-2015). The dataset contains 287,242 accesses referred to 144,895 under 14 patients and it includes information on patients\u2019 characteristics and on their clinical pathway. To overcome the limitations connected to previous definitions of frequent use, we exploit the availability of data on three years; this allows to define, not only frequent use, but also its duration (i.e. One-shot / Multiple shot frequent use) and intensity (Normal, High, Very high). By the use of logit and multinomial logit regressions we identify a set of risk factors associated to frequent use and to the different forms of frequent use. Results show that even if frequent users represent a small share of patients (9%) they contribute to roughly 25% of accesses. Chronic conditions are the most relevant determinants of frequent use (particularly mental disorders, diseases of the respiratory system) but also foreign nationality turns out to be an important predictor. Differences emerge in the impact of regressors on the different forms of frequent use defined according to its duration and intensity. The study represents an important tool to support policy-making and to discriminate between the potentially preventable frequent use (i.e. inapFrequent users of Emergency Departments (EDs) represent a particularly interesting category of users since they account to a small percentage of patients but they affect considerably accesses, overcrowding and the overall costs of ED activities. The literature on the topic is vast and it allows to delineate a profile of frequent users identifying socio-demographic (age, gender, nationality) and clinical (chronic diseases, drugs and alcohol abuse; psychic illnesses) risk factors. However, most of the studies on the topic limit the analysis to one-year period or to a single study site and there is no consensus on the definition of frequent use. Frequent users are generally defined as those patients reporting a number of accesses per year beyond a certain threshold. The selection of the threshold is often based on previous literature or on percentiles but the definitions vary considerably and the choice tends to be subjective. In this study, the focus will be placed on paediatric patients, with reference to which the contributions in the literature are still very limited. The objective is to identify the most important drivers of ED frequent use in the 19 EDs of Liguria region (Italy) during a three-year period (2013-2015). The dataset contains 287,242 accesses referred to 144,895 under 14 patients and it includes information on patients\u2019 characteristics and on their clinical pathway. To overcome the limitations connected to previous definitions of frequent use, we exploit the availability of data on three years; this allows to define, not only frequent use, but also its duration (i.e. One-shot / Multiple shot frequent use) and intensity (Normal, High, Very high). By the use of logit and multinomial logit regressions we identify a set of risk factors associated to frequent use and to the different forms of frequent use. Results show that even if frequent users represent a small share of patients (9%) they contribute to roughly 25% of accesses. Chronic conditions are the most relevant determinants of frequent use (particularly mental disorders, diseases of the respiratory system) but also foreign nationality turns out to be an important predictor. Differences emerge in the impact of regressors on the different forms of frequent use defined according to its duration and intensity. 150 05 March 2018, IISES Annual Conference, Sevilla ISBN ISBN 978-80-87927-45-8, IISES The study represents an important tool to support policy-making and to discriminate between the potentially preventable frequent use (i.e. inapFrequent users of Emergency Departments (EDs) represent a particularly interesting category of users since they account to a small percentage of patients but they affect considerably accesses, overcrowding and the overall costs of ED activities. The literature on the topic is vast and it allows to delineate a profile of frequent users identifying socio-demographic (age, gender, nationality) and clinical (chronic diseases, drugs and alcohol abuse; psychic illnesses) risk factors. However, most of the studies on the topic limit the analysis to one-year period or to a single study site and there is no consensus on the definition of frequent use. Frequent users are generally defined as those patients reporting a number of accesses per year beyond a certain threshold. The selection of the threshold is often based on previous literature or on percentiles but the definitions vary considerably and the choice tends to be subjective. In this study, the focus will be placed on paediatric patients, with reference to which the contributions in the literature are still very limited. The objective is to identify the most important drivers of ED frequent use in the 19 EDs of Liguria region (Italy) during a three-year period (2013-2015). The dataset contains 287,242 accesses referred to 144,895 under 14 patients and it includes information on patients\u2019 characteristics and on their clinical pathway. To overcome the limitations connected to previous definitions of frequent use, we exploit the availability of data on three years; this allows to define, not only frequent use, but also its duration (i.e. One-shot / Multiple shot frequent use) and intensity (Normal, High, Very high). By the use of logit and multinomial logit regressions we identify a set of risk factors associated to frequent use and to the different forms of frequent use. Results show that even if frequent users represent a small share of patients (9%) they contribute to roughly 25% of accesses. Chronic conditions are the most relevant determinants of frequent use (particularly mental disorders, diseases of the respiratory system) but also foreign nationality turns out to be an important predictor. Differences emerge in the impact of regressors on the different forms of frequent use defined according to its duration and intensity. 150 05 March 2018, IISES Annual Conference, Sevilla ISBN ISBN 978-80-87927-45-8, IISES The study represents an important tool to support policy-making and to discriminate between the potentially preventable frequent use (i.e. inapappropriate use) and that associated to complex medical conditions, such as chronic conditions