A Comparison of Brick-and-Mortar and Online Last Mile Delivery Networks

Driven by the rapid growth of e-commerce, last mile delivery has become an increasingly necessary strategy for retailers to stay competitive. The locations of distribution centers and the capacity of vehicles have profound effects on transportation costs. Demand for same-day delivery services is expected to increase in popularity as new technologies, such as drones and automated transportation, evolve and become cheaper to develop. Organizations that design their logistic network efficiently hold the largest competitive advantage. Amazon is currently an industry leader in shipping and delivery logistics by utilizing its online ordering process. Brick-and-mortar stores such as Walmart and Best Buy are trying to keep pace by similarly offering online ordering and curbside delivery using outsourced delivery services. When considering the most effective method of delivery, one consideration is whether a delivery system can balance its ability to drive down the distance driven by its fleet while increasing the density of packages that are to be delivered. In this regard, modeling and simulation software can be used effectively to run sensitivity analysis to understand key performance indicators of transportation costs, enabling organizations to estimate the most effective ways to deliver products to consumers. Additionally, simulation can be used to make larger organizational decisions relating to the supply chain. In this thesis, logistic simulation modeling software, anyLogistix, is combined with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to investigate the most cost efficient mode of delivery network. The results of this study demonstrate that a network with fewer distribution centers will have higher transportation costs due to a greater distance to cover

KETIDAKSADARAN PENGARANG MELALUI PERILAKU ABNORMAL TOKOH DALAM NOVEL PASUNG JIWA KARYA OKKY MADASARI (Studi Psikoanalisis Sigmund Freud)

Pasung Jiwa is a novel written by Okky Madasari gives different perspective about abnormal behavior. Based on the description above, the problems in the research are 1) why did Okky Madasari have to make such characters with abnormal behavior in Pasung Jiwa? 2) how was the unconsciousness of Okky Madasari in case of making such characters with abnormal behavior? The aims of the research are 1) to know the reason behind Okky Madasari making abnormal behavior characters, 2) to know the untold desires of Okky Madasari through abnormal behavior of the characters. The research used Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis teory. The research also used a qualitative method. Psychocriticism analysis is used as the technique of analysis data. Based on the analysis which have been done, we can conclude that 1) in case of the abnormal behavior of the characters, Okky Madasari consider that abnormal behavior isn’t a mental disorder, but it can happens as implementation of consequence of being locked by norms and prohibition in society culture, 2) the analysis about the unconsciousness which consist of condensation, diversion, and symbolism gives three conclusions. First, Pasung Jiwa is a place for Okky Madasari to convey her desire in order to give her advocacy for LGBT community. Okky Madasari has reason for supporting LGBT because of the influence of her acquaintance with gay community. Second, Okky Madasari’s perspective in giving her thoughts on madness is influenced by Michel Foucault. We can find this in the novel which Okky unconsciously made a connection between madness and marginal community which is being illustrated by Sasana. Third, the Pasung Jiwa novel is a mirror of Okky Madasari in giving her thoughts about norms, freedom, and abnormal behavior. Okky Madasari consider that abnormal behavior is kind of consequence of being locked by regulation and domination of majority community side-effect

A Case Of Media Budget Definition In The Banking Industry

The problem that usually all enterprises face, in the presence of scarce resources, concerns the definition of the communication budget and a media planning compatible with the objectives of communication and with the budget itself. The case we refer to, the Banco Popolare, is an example of best practice in defining the budget and in assigning the same on the various media. The many merger cases that have characterized the Italian banking world, in the last years, have consequently led to an exponential growth of the communication investments in this industry. With the aim of facilitating the rebranding process and repositioning of the business, heavy investments in institutional communication are often required

A Feasibility Study of a LQTS-Specific Workshop: Childrens\u27 Problem-Solving Skills, Coping, Self-Efficacy, and Locus of Control

Living with a chronic medical condition in childhood and adolescence requires many critical lifestyle changes and restrictions, which may compromise psychosocial development. Social problem-solving skills have been shown to enhance the ability to cope with both minor and major daily stressors and to minimize psychological problems associated with physical health problems. The research is part of a larger study with children with long QT syndrome (LQTS) and their parents; the present study focuses on the children. This study was developed to examine the feasibility and efficacy of a problem-solving workshop to increase problem solving, self-efficacy, coping, and locus of control in children with LQTS. Participants were two parent-child dyads. Parents participated to learn problem-solving skills and coach their children in learning these skills. There was very good agreement (ĸ = 0.986) among the independent raters regarding the extent to which the protocol was implemented as intended. Overall evaluations of the workshop by participants were positive, and the workshop was deemed both feasible and effective. Child participants had overall increases in problem-solving skills and maintained these improvements throughout follow-up. They also had increases in coping abilities at 1-month follow-up, but scores returned to baseline at the 3-month follow-up. Although there was a slight increase in locus of control, self-efficacy scores fluctuated from baseline to the 3-month follow-up. The inclusion of parents in the workshop is believed to have helped facilitate children’s short-term gains on outcome measures. Continual support and review of problem-solving skills may be necessary to facilitate long-term gains in problem-solving, coping, and adaptive skills in children

A Feasibility Study of a Problem-Solving Workshop for Children Diagnosed with LQTS and Their Parents: A Pilot Study of Two Dyads

Long-QT Syndrome (LQTS) is an inherited cardiac condition that predisposes individuals to cardiac arrhythmias. The clinical manifestation of LQTS is syncope, ventricular tachycardia, or a fast heart rhythm, and sudden death. Living with chronic medical conditions in adolescence comes with many critical lifestyle changes and restrictions. These lifestyle changes and restrictions may compromise psychosocial development. Social problem-solving skills have been shown to enhance one’s ability to cope with both minor and major daily stressors and minimize psychological problems associated with physical health problems. The present pilot study was developed to identify the feasibility and efficacy of a problem-solving workshop to increase problem-solving, self-efficacy, coping, and locus of control in children with LQTS. Participants in the study were 2 dyads (child and parent). Each of the children (Ages 9 & 13; 1 male & 1 female) participating in the workshop had been previously diagnosed with LQTS at least 6 months prior to participation. Parents/caregivers (Ages 40 & 43; 1 male & 1 female) were participants in the workshop to learn problem-solving skills and coach their children to learn these skills. Integrity checks were conducted via kappa coefficients to determine the degree to which group leaders adhered to the protocol and whether the techniques were implemented with fidelity. Interrater reliability ratings ĸ = 0.986 indicating very good agreement between the raters of the extent to which the protocol was implemented as intended. Results indicated that overall evaluations of the workshop by participants were positive and the workshop was both feasible and effective. Parents reported an overall 93.67%, and children reported an overall 96% satisfaction rating (out of 100). Participant scores from pretest, 1-month follow-up, and 3-month follow-up on variables measured were evaluated. Child participants demonstrated overall increases in problem-solving skills and maintained these improvements through follow-up. They also demonstrated increases in coping abilities at 1-month follow-up, but returned back to baseline scores by the 3-month follow-up. General Self-Efficacy and Locus of Control were relatively maintained for children between baseline and follow-up time points. Parent participants demonstrated overall increases in adaptive problem-solving skills and decreases in maladaptive problem-solving skills, which were maintained throughout follow-up. Increases in coping abilities and hope, and decreases in worry were also noted in parental participants. The inclusion of parents in the workshop is believed to have helped facilitate children\u27s short-term gains on outcome measures. It is suggested that future workshops provide parents with guidelines on how to reinforce the use of problem-solving skills, and perhaps, may include telephonic coaching 1- and 3-months post-workshop. Results of this study can assist physicians and medical professionals to refer or offer social problem-solving skills to children diagnosed with LQTS. This study demonstrates that continual support and review of problem-solving skills may be necessary to facilitate long-term gains of problem-solving, coping, and adaptive skills in children. Further investigation of utilization of this workshop as a tool to help children and their parents better cope with the daily LQTS related events is needed

Reaching a modular, domain-agnostic and containerized development in biomedical Natural Language Processing systems.

The last century saw an exponential increase in scientific publications in the biomedical domain. Despite the potential value of this knowledge; most of this data is only available as unstructured textual literature, which have limited their systematic access, use and exploitation. This limitation can be avoided, or at least mitigated, by relying on text mining techniques to automatically extract relevant data and structure it from textual documents. A significant challenge for scientific software applications, including Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems, consists in providing facilities to share, distribute and run such systems in a simple and convenient way. Software containers can host their own dependencies and auxiliary programs, isolating them from the execution environment. In addition, a workflow manager can be used for the automated orchestration and execution of the text mining pipelines. Our work is focused in the study and design of new techniques and approaches to construct, develop, validate and deploy NLP components and workflows with sufficient genericity, scalability and interoperability allowing their use and instantiation across different domains. The results and techniques acquired will be applied in two main uses cases: the detection of relevant information from preclinical toxicological reports, under the eTRANSAFE project [1]; and the indexation of biomaterials publications with relevant concepts as part as the DEBBIE project

Comparison of wide field optical coherence tomography angiography with extended field imaging and fluorescein angiography in retinal vascular disorders

Purpose To compare swept source OCTA device, with and without the extended field imaging (EFI) technique, to standard fluorescein angiography (FA) in the clinical practice. Methods Consecutive patients with vascular disorder patients underwent FA with 55-degree lens (Spectralis Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany) and OCTA with the prototype PlexElite (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA) using a 12 mm x 12 mm volume scan pattern centered on the fovea and a prototype of + 20.00-diopter designed specifically by Zeiss. The imaging methods were compared for visible field of view, extension of non-perfused areas, presence and number of neovessels, vessel density (VD) and fractal dimension (FD). Results Forty-three eyes of 27 patients were included. The mean extension ratio of EFI SS-OCTA compared to SS-OCTA without EFI and FA were 1.97 \ub1 0.02 and 0.85 \ub1 0.01. The mean extension of non-perfused areas with EFI SS-OCTA (34.22 \ub1 33.4 mm 2 ) was significantly higher than SS-OCTA without EFI (20.46 \ub1 18.70 mm 2 ), and with FA (27.55 \ub1 4.4 mm 2 ). The mean VD and FD of EFI SS-OCTA were significantly different compared to SS-OCT without EFI. Conclusions EFI SS-OCTA captured larger areas than SS-OCTA without EFI and FA. OCTA in a single shot is able to obtain more information of the retina without the use of montage techniques. Despite the determination of retinal ischemia seems to be easier and more accurate using EFI SS-OCTA, FA offers more details of the perfusion status of the retina

Does Nationality Matter in Eco-Behaviour?

Although many authors agree on the role of personal values in explaining the main determinants of eco-behaviour, disagreement about the effects of socio-demographic features exists, particularly about the effect of nationality. In an attempt to fill this gap in the literature, this paper contributes to the debate surrounding the main determinants of eco-behaviour, based on a cross-country analysis. To test the role of nationality and personal values in eco-behaviour, a linear regression model involving 353 Chinese and 333 Italian subjects was performed. A stepwise analysis was then conducted to identify the main significant effects. The explorative and stepwise analyses confirmed that nationality is significant when explaining individual eco-behaviour, for both Italian and Chinese people. Moreover, the linear regression model, as a stepwise analysis, showed that regulatory focus and universalism are the main personal values influencing ecological behaviour. Differences emerging from the analysis show significant differences in terms of eco-behaviour and eco-awareness, for the two countries involved in the analysis, that might lead companies to adopt different marketing strategies when promoting eco-products