A Comparison Between Conventional and High-Priority Bus Services in Davao City, Southern Philippines

The increasing demand for transport system in Davao City has paved the way for the proposal of two transportation options, namely, the conventional bus service (CBS) and high-priority bus service (HPBS). A necessary step for transport policy making is quantitatively determining the differences between these transport options. In this study, we compare the projected performances of CBS and HPBS in terms of their expected load factor and passenger waiting time at chosen stations in Davao City. Our assessment is based on the data gathered about the existing public transport system at eight stations in the Mintal area during the morning rush hours. A single server batch service queueing model was adopted in this study to approximate the passenger waiting time at a station for each transport option. Passenger arrivals are fitted to a Poisson distribution using least square methods yielding a headway/service time of 3 min and service frequency during the observation period is 40. Our results show that though the load factor of CBS is higher than the HPBS, it fails to meet the passenger demands at some stations, which resulted in increased passenger waiting time

A Mixed-Integer Programming Model for Optimal Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccines in Davao City

With the emergence of COVID-19 in Davao City, the need to acquire herd immunity through vaccination is paramount in averting the further spread of the disease in addition to complying with health and safety protocols. This study presents a reformulation of Smalley et al.’s (2015) oral cholera vaccine—mixed-integer programming model (OCV-MIP) to fit the context of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the city for 5 years, with consideration of the possible need for annual revaccination, given limited supply and budget resources, to minimize COVID-19 cases further. The population is divided into subgroups with associated incidence rates serving as the basis for the optimal allocation of vaccines. Different ways of population stratification by some combinations of risk areas and age group divisions were explored. The results revealed that it is optimal to prioritize the vaccination of subgroups with the highest incidence rates. Keywords: forecasting · COVID-19 · Davao City · LINGO · Mixed-Integer Programming · Optimization · Philippines · SARS-CoV-2 · Vaccine

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Morphological characterization using sensory canal pores and pit organs in goby fishes (Gobiidae) in Lake Mainit, Agusan del Norte

The taxonomic status of goby fishes in Lake Mainit, Agusan del Norte has not yet been properly established. Through morphological characterization, it could aid in identifying the fishes up to the species level. In this study, the arrangement of the sensory canal pores and pit organs on the cephalic region of the fish was used to determine its identity. Through this, it was known that all samples belong to Glossogobius giuris. Color patterns present after 95% ethanol immersion were also observed to evaluate which characteristics belong to this species even after decoloration. Procrustes Analysis was also employed to correlate the fish samples gathered in April 2006 and June 2007 in the study of Cherry Sara (2009) with the May 2009 samples obtained in this study by using the fishes morphometrics. This yielded a result that the fishes are correlated to one another with a correlation in a symmetric procrustes rotation value of 0.957 and Pvalue of 0.001. Therefore, fish samples collected from both studies are of the same species with respect to the similar season within a year

A cointegration analysis of rabies cases and weather components in Davao City, Philippines from 2006 to 2017.

Rabies is a lethal viral disease and dogs are the major disease reservoir in the Philippines. Spatio-temporal variations in environmental factors are known to affect disease dynamics. Some rabies-affected countries considered investigating the role of weather components in driving rabies cases and it has helped them to strategize their control efforts. In this study, cointegration analysis was conducted between the monthly reported rabies cases and the weather components, such as temperature and precipitation, to verify the effect of weather components on rabies incidence in Davao City, Philippines. With the Engle-Granger cointegration tests, we found that rabies cases are cointegrated into each of the weather components. It was further validated, using the Granger causality test, that each weather component predicts the rabies cases and not vice versa. Moreover, we performed the Johansen cointegration test to show that the weather components simultaneously affect the number of rabies cases, which allowed us to estimate a vector-error correction model for rabies incidence as a function of temperature and precipitation. Our analyses showed that canine rabies in Davao City was weather-sensitive, which implies that rabies incidence could be projected using established long-run relationship among reported rabies cases, temperature, and precipitation. This study also provides empirical evidence that can guide local health officials in formulating preventive strategies for rabies control and eradication based on weather patterns

Birthing a mathematical biology community in the Philippines

The International Workshop on Mathematical Biology, or IWOMB, has already been held for two consecutive years in the Philippines. The first workshop was held on January 7-10, 2018 at Costabella Tropical Beach Resort, Cebu City, Philippines [1]. The second workshop was held on January 6-10, 2019 at Bohol Bee Farm, Bohol, Philippines [2]. Like a mother bearing a child, the IWOMB has been thought of as an avenue to organize and build a strong mathematical biology community dedicated to the training and mentoring of young researchers. IWOMB participants include emerging researchers and graduate students from different provinces of the Philippines and neighboring countries, who are interested in diverse topics on mathematical biology. The workshop also aims to explore research breakthroughs and give birth to fresh ideas from scientific discussions between Filipino and foreign mathematical biology enthusiasts

Transmission dynamics and baseline epidemiological parameter estimates of Coronavirus disease 2019 pre-vaccination: Davao City, Philippines

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has exposed many systemic vulnerabilities in many countries' health system, disaster preparedness, and adequate response capabilities. With the early lack of data and information about the virus and the many differing local-specific factors contributing to its transmission, managing its spread had been challenging. The current work presents a modified Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered compartmental model incorporating intervention protocols during different community quarantine periods. The COVID-19 reported cases before the vaccine rollout in Davao City, Philippines, are utilized to obtain baseline values for key epidemiologic model parameters. The probable secondary infections (i.e., time-varying reproduction number) among other epidemiological indicators were computed. Results show that the cases in Davao City were driven by the transmission rates, positivity proportion, latency period, and the number of severely symptomatic patients. This paper provides qualitative insights into the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 along with the government's implemented intervention protocols. Furthermore, this modeling framework could be used for decision support, policy making, and system development for the current and future pandemics. Copyright: © 2023 Añonuevo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.11Nsciescopu

Cross-Sector Collaboration, Institutional Gaps, and Fragility: The Role of Social Innovation Partnerships in a Conflict-Affected Region

The authors aim to contribute to the literature on subsistence marketplaces and the marketing field in general by exploring social innovation partnerships in a fragile country characterized by institutional gaps—specifically, by considering the role of cross-sector collaboration in conflict-affected areas. The empirical setting consists of coffee partnerships in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the authors collected data from and about companies, nongovernmental organizations, and cooperatives using both primary and secondary sources, including a field trip, interviews, and group discussions with farmers and their families. They show results at the organizational level (i.e., buildup of managerial capacities, transfer of financial-administrative skills, and improved functioning of cooperatives), the farmer level (i.e., better prices, livelihoods, and access to markets as well as increased revenues), and the community level (i.e., reduced tensions and collaboration between previously hostile groups as well as the creation of new governance modalities). The study suggests that partnerships may offer a systemic approach to addressing institutional gaps, which is necessary in such “extreme” contexts. The authors close with a discussion of further implications for research and public policy