Analyzing the Mediating Role of Service Quality in the Relationship between Service Quality and Patient Satisfaction at Rafic Hariri University Hospital

Purpose:  This study delves into the intricate web of relationships between tangible elements, responsibility, reliability, empathy, and patient satisfaction, with a specific focus on Rafic Hariri University Hospital Theoretical framework: The Expectancy-Disconfirmation Theory provides valuable insights into understanding patient satisfaction in the context of healthcare services. According to this theory, patient satisfaction is influenced by the comparison between their initial expectations and their subsequent perceptions of the actual service received   Design/Methodology/Approach:  With a sample size of 398 participants, a structured equation model was employed to analyze the mediating role of service quality in this context. The healthcare industry's dynamic nature necessitates a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing patient satisfaction for continuous improvement. Findings:  Service quality emerges as a mediator in this framework, acting as a bridge between the aforementioned factors and patient satisfaction. The mediating role of service quality implies that the impact of tangible elements, responsibility, reliability, and empathy on patient satisfaction is channeled through the lens of service quality. This emphasizes the vital role that hospital management and staff play in not only directly affecting patients but also indirectly through the quality of services rendered Research, Practical & Social implications:   Rafic Hariri University Hospital, as the backdrop for this study, provides a specific context in which to examine these relationships. With a diverse patient population and a reputation for delivering high-quality healthcare, this hospital offers valuable insights into the dynamics of patient satisfaction.  Originality/Value:  The findings shed light on the critical role of service quality as a mediator and underscore the importance of maintaining high standards across tangible elements, responsibility, reliability, and empathy to enhance patient satisfaction

The Honorary White Population: Fighting for Self-Identification

The intent of this thesis is to explore the history of classification of Arab-Americans within the United States, showcase how Arab-Americans have encountered systematic racism, and give reasons why Arab-Americans should be able to self-identify. Currently, according to the Census definition, Middle Easterners fall under the White category. This is a misrepresentation of Middle Easterners as they should be considered a minority in light of societal treatment and policies set forth by policy makers. Even though much research has been conducted by the Census, they have elected to withhold the Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) category from the 2020 Census. Solutions for this issue are: Gaining universities\u27 involvement in the movement for a MENA category, encouraging legislation to place MENA as a minority within affirmative action, and the MENA category being placed on the 2030 census

HOW BIG DATA WILL BE AN ADDED VALUE TO SCM?

It is the era of digital information technology where almost everything is going smart. Thus, organizations move towards digitalization that cause the emergent of Big Data. Analyzing big data is the big challenge today. Being smart puts the world under a big challenge to adapt, change, and upgrade systems to analyze the Big Data using the high technology. Challenges are growing with the market and appears in different forms. Many of these challenges can be hard or difficult to handle on your own if you are a small to medium size business without the help of supply chain management system. The main objective of this paper is to contribute and examine these research questions: What are the Big Data Analytical tools used in SCM? In addition to the Impact of Analyzing Big Data on Supply Chain Management? The methodology used was a systematic review over the existing literature including Big Data, supply chain, SCM, and the impact of BD analytical tools on SCM. Data collected and unsystematically interpreted and the findings summarized in a subjective way that describes and discusses the literature from a contextual or theoretical point of view. Big data can tremendously affect the supply chain units and can add values to the overall supply chain operations by improving the processes to be more effective and efficient based on the analysis results. Big data analytics become a core differentiation factor for any organization that acquire it in the last few years

Effect of feed salinity on the performance of humidification dehumidification desalination

Humidification dehumidification (HDH) is a thermal desalination technology that imitates the rain cycle in an engineered setting. It can be advantageous is small-scale, decentralized applications. In addition, the components used in HDH systems are fairly robust, and can treat highly saline water. The technology has recently been commercialized in order to treat highly saline produced water from hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells. That plant has proved HDH’s ability to treat water that most current seawater desalination technologies are unable to treat. The major disadvantage of HDH is its low energy efficiency compared to other desalination technologies when treating seawater. Previous studies have shown that the system’s energy efficiency can be improved greatly by varying the water-to-air mass flow rate ratio within the system. This translates into operating two or more adjacent stages at different mass flow rate ratios, which is done by extracting an air stream from an intermediate location in the humidifier and injecting it at an intermediate location in the dehumidifier. Previous models have used fixed effectiveness or fixed pinch approaches to evaluate the benefits of multi-staging, but these do not take account of the size of the system. In physical systems, what remains constant when going from a single-stage to a multi-stage system is the total size of the system and not the effectiveness or the pinch. Therefore, comparing systems with the same total heat exchanger area is the best way to understand the effect of extraction/injection and whether its implementation is beneficial or not. In this paper, a numerical heat and mass transfer model is used to simulate the operation of HDH at various feed salinities. For each case, the performance of the single-stage system is compared to that of a two-stage system of the same size at different values of feed salinity. The ability of HDH to treat feeds with varying salinity is also studied.Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM (Project R4-CW-08

Entropy generation analysis of electrodialysis

Electrodialysis (ED) is a desalination technology with many applications. In order to better understand how the energetic performance of this technology can be improved, the various losses in the system should be quantified and characterized. This can be done by looking at the entropy generation in ED systems. In this paper, we implement an ED model based on the Maxwell-Stefan transport model, which is the closest model to fundamental equations. We study the sources of entropy generation at different salinities, and locate areas where possible improvements need to be made under different operating conditions. In addition, we study the effect of the channel height, membrane thickness, and cell-pair voltage on the specific rate of entropy generation. We express the second-law efficiency of ED as the product of current and voltage utilization rates, and study its variation with current density. Further, we define the useful voltage that is used beneficially for separation. We derive the rate of entropy generation that is due to the passage of ions through a voltage drop, and we investigate whether voltage drops themselves can provide a good estimate of entropy generation.Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) (Project No. P31475EC01

A Numerical Solution Algorithm for a Heat and Mass Transfer Model of a Desalination System Based on Packed-Bed Humidification and Bubble Column Dehumidification

The humidification-dehumidification (HDH) desalination system can be advantageous in small-scale, off-grid applications. The main drawback of this technology has been its low energy efficiency, which results in high water production costs. Previous studies have approached this issue through thermodynamic balancing of the system; however, most theoretical work on the balancing of HDH has followed a fixed-effectiveness approach that does not explicitly consider transport processes in the components. Fixing the effectiveness of the heat and mass exchangers allows them to be modeled without explicitly sizing the components and gives insight on how the cycle design can be improved. However, linking the findings of fixed-effectiveness models to actual systems can be challenging, as the performance of the components depends mainly on the available surface areas and the flow rates of the air and water streams. In this study, we present a robust numerical solution algorithm for a heat and mass tranfer model of a complete humidification-dehumidification system consisting of a packed-bed humidifier and a multi-tray bubble column dehumidifier. We look at the effect of varying the water-to-air mass flow rate ratio on the energy efficiency of the system, and we compare the results to those reached following a fixed-effectiveness approach. In addition, we study the effect of the top and bottom temperatures on the performance of the system. We recommended the implementation a control system that varies the mass flow rate ratio in order to keep the system balanced in off-design conditions, especially with varying top temperature.Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM (Project R4-CW-08

Contra implicit bias

Orthodox literature on bias follows what I call the Dualistic Alignment Hypothesis (or the dualistic paradigm). The basis of this dualistic paradigm culminates in the assumption that there is a principled distinction between explicit attitudes and implicit bias and the behaviour guided by each. In this thesis I do two things. First, I challenge the dualistic paradigm on empirical and conceptual grounds. Further, I show that dualistic thinking faces serious challenges. Ultimately, I reject the dualistic paradigm as the best explanatory theory of bias. Second, I propose a novel explanatory hypothesis of the data, the mosaic view. I argue that the mosaic view is grounded in a more realistic understanding of social evaluations. What underpins social behaviour are not two unified, stable, and distinct mental kinds, but rather a complex conglomeration of interacting elements of mind within a network I call a stance. The principal idea underlying the mosaic view is that social behaviour is best considered as the result of complex interactions between elements of a stance, activated differently across contexts, and interacting with background beliefs, commitments, values, and other mental states

Use of multiple extractions and injections to thermodynamically balance the humidification dehumidification desalination system

Humidification dehumidification (HDH) desalination systems are well suited for small scale, off-grid desalination. These systems are very robust and can tolerate a wide range of feed salinities, making them a good candidate for treating produced water from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells. A primary engineering challenge for these systems is their high thermal energy consumption. In this study, we examine the use of multiple air extractions and injections to thermodynamically balance the HDH system, so as to make it more energy efficient. The effect of the number of extractions on several performance parameters is studied. In addition, we study the effect of the enthalpy pinch, which is a measure of performance for a heat and mass exchanger, on these performance parameters. Finally, we present results that can be used as guidelines in designing HDH systems. These results include the identification of appropriate temperatures for the extracted/injected air streams, the division of the heat duty between stages, and the value of the mass flow rate ratio in each stage at various values of enthalpy pinch.Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM (Project R4-CW-08

Thermodynamic balancing of a fixed-size two-stage humidification dehumidification desalination system

Humidification dehumidification (HDH) is a desalination technology that has shown promise in small scale, decentralized applications. Previous studies on the multi-staging of HDH have used fixed-effectiveness models which do not explicitly account for transport processes in the components. However, to fully understand the effect of the variation of the mass flow rate ratio, it is necessary to implement heat and mass transfer models of the HDH system. In this paper, we model an HDH system consisting of a packed-bed humidifier and a multi-tray bubble column dehumidifier. We study the effect of the mass flow rate ratio on the performance of a fixed-size system, and we consider its effect on the entropy generation and the driving forces for heat and mass transfer. In addition, we define a generalized energy effectiveness for heat and mass exchangers. We also implement an air extraction/injection and simulate a wide range of operating conditions. We define criteria for the best system performance, and we study the effect of the distribution of available area between separate stages. We also present a thorough explanation of why the direction of extraction should always be from the humidifier to the dehumidifier.Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM (Project R4-CW-08

Thermodynamic analysis of brine management methods: Zero-discharge desalination and salinity-gradient power production

Growing desalination capacity worldwide has made management of discharge brines an increasingly urgent environmental challenge. An important step in understanding how to choose between different brine management processes is to study the energetics of these processes. In this paper, we analyze two different ways of managing highly saline brines. The first method is complete separation with production of salts (i.e., zero-discharge desalination or ZDD). Thermodynamic limits of the ZDD process were calculated. This result was applied to the state-of-the-art industrial ZDD process to quantify how close these systems are to the thermodynamic limit, and to compare the energy consumption of the brine concentration step to the crystallization step. We conclude that the brine concentration step has more potential for improvement compared to the crystallization step. The second brine management method considered is salinity-gradient power generation through pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO), which utilizes the brine's high concentration to produce useful work while reducing its concentration by mixing the brine with a lower salinity stream in a controlled manner. We model the PRO system coupled with a desalination system using a detailed numerical optimization, which resulted in about 0.42 kW h/m3 of energy saving.Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) (Project No. P31475EC01