An activity-based system of models for student mobility simulation

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A MOBILE MENTAL HEALTH APPLICATION (NESTT) LEADS TO A SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN TRAUMA SYMPTOMS AND AN INCREASE IN COPING SKILL USE.

Background: Millions of individuals seek refuge across the world to escape persecution in their country of origin.  Many refugees and survivors of torture and trauma continue to struggle with symptoms of chronic traumatic stress and the persistence of sequelae from prior traumatic events coupled with daily post-migration stressors. Many individuals meet DSM 5 or ICD 11 criteria for PTSD and comorbid conditions including depression, anxiety, and somatic concerns. However, barriers to accessing evidence-based treatments such as (1) language (limited English proficiency/costly interpreters); (2) travel (limited transportation to treatment); (3) financial (unaffordable healthcare and associated interpreter costs); and (4) cultural (cultural perceptions of mental health/illness) preclude many individuals from receiving the assistance they need.  Increasingly utilized treatments delivered via mobile devices help to overcome these barriers through the use of intuitive graphical interfaces that eliminate the need for language-based instruction. Methodology: A pilot study assessing the effectiveness of a novel mHealth toolkit (NESTTÔ) was conducted in a sample of adult re-settled refugee men and women (N=20).  Paired-sample t-tests were conducted to compare pre/post-intervention levels of trauma-related psychosocial distress on the Refugee Health Screener (RHS-15) and coping using an investigator-generated coping measure. Results: Results indicated that our culturally responsive mHealth toolkit significantly (p<.001) reduced symptoms related to traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and somatic complaints in addition to increasing the use of coping skills. Conclusion: Results support the use of mHealth technology as one of the tools to address impairing symptomatology related to traumatic stress and associated impairment.

The Breath of Sense: Language, Structure, and the Paradox of Origin

Within contemporary analytic philosophy, at least, varieties of “naturalism” have attained a widespread dominance. In this essay I suggest, however, that a closer look at the history of the linguistic turn in philosophy can offer helpful terms for rethinking what we mean in applying the categories of “nature” and “culture” within a philosophical reflection on human life and practice. For, as I argue, the central experience of this history—namely, philosophy’s transformative encounter with what it envisions as the logical or conceptual structure of everyday language – also repeatedly demonstrates the existence of a fundamental aporia or paradox at the center of the claim of language upon an ordinary human life. I discuss the occurrence of this aporia, and attempts to resolve it, in the philosophical writing of Carnap, Quine, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and McDowell. I conclude that the prevailing naturalistic style in analytic philosophy, whatever its recommendations, is itself the outcome of an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the central aporia of twentieth-century philosophical reflection on language. Closer attention to this aporia reveals that language, as we find it in both theoretical and everyday reflection, is in the most important sense, neither essentially “natural” nor “cultural.

Transit Passenger Perceptions: Face-to-Face Versus Web-Based Survey

In this paper, face-to-face and web-based survey methods of collecting transit passenger perception data are compared using two transit customer satisfaction survey tools. Multivariate statistical analyses are applied to determine the differences between the two surveys. Some differences in behavior and attitudes of web survey respondents compared with those from a face-to-face survey are found. The results can help transit agencies manage their bus services to improve passenger satisfaction and service quality

Performance indicators for an objective measure of public transport service quality

The measurement of transit performance represents a very useful tool for ensuring continuous increase of the quality of the delivered transit services, and for allocating resources among competing transit agencies. Transit service quality can be evaluated by subjective measures based on passengers’ perceptions, and objective measures represented by disaggregate performance measures expressed as numerical values, which must be compared with fixed standards or past performances. The proposed research work deals with service quality evaluation based on objective measures; specifically, an extensive overview and an interpretative review of the objective indicators until investigated by researchers are proposed. The final aim of the work is to give a review as comprehensive as possible of the objective indicators, and to provide some suggestions for the selection of the most appropriate indicators for evaluating a transit service aspect

A service quality experimental measure for public transport

In this paper the importance of service quality attributes for public transport is estabilished by Importance Value calculation. Attribute weights (IV) are calculated by a specific empirical procedure in which a rate is assigned to each attribute according to the preferences of passengers. Finally, a Service Quality Index (SQI) for measuring the effectiveness of supplied services is calculated according to the main service quality attributes and their weights. This index can be useful to planners to choose more appropriate public transport agencies. Futhermore, it can be used by transport agencies to improve supplied service regarding more convenient service quality attributes

A Stated Preference Experiment for Measuring Service Quality in Public Transport

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Willingness-to-pay of public transport users for improvement in service quality

In this paper, passenger willingness-to-pay (WTP) for improving the quality levels of a bus service is examined. Specifically, the objective of this research is to provide a tool for evaluating passenger willingness-to-pay by considering some qualitative service aspects, in addition to the traditional quantitative service aspects like travel time and cost. The adopted methodology is built on the calibration of behavioural models based on user choices. The WTP values are obtained as marginal rates of substitution between some service quality attributes and travel cost at constant utility. For this purpose, Multinomial and Mixed Logit models are introduced. The models were calibrated by using the data collected from an SP experiment in which each user makes a choice between an alternative representing the current service and two alternatives representing hypothetical bus services. In order to take into account the randomness of the estimated WTP, the limits of the confidence intervals are calculated

Transit Passenger Perceptions: Face-to-Face Versus Web-Based Survey

In this paper, face-to-face and web-based survey methods of collecting transit passenger perception data are compared using two transit customer satisfaction survey tools. Multivariate statistical analyses are applied to determine the differences between the two surveys. Some differences in behavior and attitudes of web survey respondents compared with those from a face-to-face survey are found. The results can help transit agencies manage their bus services to improve passenger satisfaction and service quality

Spatial association techniques for analysing trip distribution in an urban area

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