Validation of the service profit chain model

Service profit chain is a well-received model to explain the sustainable competitiveness of many service organizations. The model attributes a service organization's financial and market performance to its relationships with its customers and employees. According to the service profit chain, internal service quality serves the foundation of the model and it ignites a chain effect leading to an organization's growth and profitability in the end. The purpose of this study is to provide an ad hoc analysis of two key elements of the service profit chain. Specifically, this research explores the direct linkage between performance in growth and profitability and quality of work life, which is a proxy for internal service quality in the service profit chain model. The performance of companies with a reputation of high quality of work life was contrasted to a control group of S&P 500 companies using COMPUSTAT data

Optimizing the service configuration with the least total cost approach

Presents an approach to optimize the service configurations of a student canteen utilizing computer simulation and a total cost function that incorporates both the cost of services and the cost of waiting. The cost of waiting is measured in terms of the impact of waiting on the customer satisfaction and the resulting changes in future repurchases. By collecting data, of waiting time and customer satisfaction from a student canteen, first evaluates the impact of waiting time on customer satisfaction and future purchase frequency. Subsequently develops a simulation model to simulate the service processes and waiting fine behavior at the student canteen. By varying the number of servers at the two different stages of services and calculating the total cost per customer served, the performance of the system was optimized considering both the service cost and the cost of waiting in term of its impact on future purchases. The approach presented can be used with modification in designing service configurations for a variety of service organizations

The human secretin receptor gene: Genomic organization and promoter characterization

Secretin is the most potent regulator of pancreatic bicarbonate, electrolyte and volume secretion. In this report, the organization of the human secretin receptor (hSR) gene was characterized by overlapping genomic phage clones. The hSR gene consists of 13 exons and 12 introns with all the splice donor and acceptor sites conforming to the canonical GT/AG rule. By transient reporter gene assays, the wild-type promoter, containing 3.0 kb of the hSR gene 5' flanking region, was able to drive 5.8±0.6 and 6.6±0.2-fold (P<0.01) increases in luciferase activities in pancreatic ductule-derived PANC-1 and BPD-1 cells, respectively. By subsequent 5' and 3' deletion analysis, a promoter element was identified within -408 to -158, relative to the ATG codon. This promoter element was found to be cell-specific since it could drive reporter gene expression in PANC-1 and BPD-1 cells but not in Hs 262.St, Hs 746T and αT3-1 cells. The study of the transcriptional control of human secretin and its receptor should shed light on the pathological developments of pancreatic cancer and autism in the future. Copyright (C) 1999 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Risk factors for child physical abuse and neglect among Chinese young mothers

Although studies have reported a linkage between young pregnancy and child maltreatment risk, it is still unclear about what factors place young mothers at greater risk of maltreating their child in Chinese context. Based on the socio-ecological model, risk factors in 4 domains: family background/structure, maternal stressors, mother-child interaction, and child behavioral issue in relation to physical assault, neglect, both physical assault and neglect, and either physical assault or neglect among Chinese young mothers in Hong Kong were assessed. 392 young mothers were recruited from an integrated supportive program for young mothers. The mean age of mothers at delivery was 21.8 (SD = 3.0) and 52.3% were married. Individual risk factors and cumulative risk domains related to different child maltreatment groups were examined. Our results show both overlapping and unique risk factors across the domains associated with physical assault and neglect. Further, young families exposed to higher number of risk domains show higher rates for physical assault and neglect, co-occurrence of physical assault and neglect, and either form of maltreatment. In addition, various risk domains were found to be particularly important for different forms of maltreatment: family background/structure domain was found to be an important risk domain for neglect; mother-child interaction domain for both physical assault and neglect; family background/structure and maternal stressors domains for either physical assault or neglect. Closer examination of a subgroup of adolescent mothers aged 18 and below shows that family background/structure was an important risk domain for this group.Department of Applied Social Science

In vitro cytotoxicity of (-)-EGCG octaacetate on MDAMB-231 and SKHep-1 human carcinoma cells: A pharmacological consideration on prodrug design

Esterification of acetate with generic pharmaceutical compound has been commonly employed to produce ester prodrug for improving its potency when compared with the mother compound. Acetate, on the other hand, has been recognized to have inhibitory effect on the respiratory biochemistry. Here we demonstrate that acetate at a concentration of 400 mu M exhibited significant growth inhibitory activity on two human cancer cell lines, the MDAMB-231 breast cancer and the SKHep-1 hepatoma cell lines. To establish the ester prodrug with multi-acetate ester conjugates as our experimental model, one molecule of (-)-epigallocatechin gallate was required to conjugate with eight molecules of acetate forming the corresponding (-)-epigallocatechin gallate octaacetate prodrug. Chemical structure of this epigallocatechin gallate octaacetate ester prodrug was confirmed by both C-13 and H-1 nuclear magnetic resonance spectra and mass spectrometry. Further cytotoxic assay using both MDAMB-231 and SKHep-1 human carcinoma cell lines showed that acetate at a concentration of 400 mu M exhibits an additional cytotoxic effect with (-)-epigallocatechin gallate at a concentration of 50 mu M, although the additional effect was not as high as (-)-epigallocatechin gallate octaacetate ester prodrug alone at a concentration of 50 mu M. Our results thus raise a pharmacological consideration of using multi-acetate conjugate as the ester prodrug where the release of free acetate by esterase could be part of the explanation for the improved in vitro cytotoxicity

In vivo anti-tumour activity of corilagin on Hep3B hepatocellular carcinoma

We have investigated the potential in vivo anti-tumour activity of corilagin using the Hep3B hepatocellular carcinoma cell line and an athymic nude mice xenograft model. The purity of corilagin was confirmed by high performance liquid chromatographic analysis. Corilagin was administrated intraperitoneally for a continuous period of 7 days at a concentration of 15 mg/kg of body weight per day. A significant inhibition of tumour growth was observed when treated mice are compared with control groups. Furthermore, analysis of enzymes markers of liver function, including alanine aminotransferase and asparate aminotransferase, suggested that current therapeutic dosage of corilagin did not exert adverse effect on liver. Our observations support the view that corilagin is considerably effective to retard the in vivo growth of xenografted Hep3B hepatocellular carcinoma. (C) 2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved

Optimization of total inventory cost and order fill rate in a supply chain using PSO

This paper proposes a method to optimize both the total cost and order fill rates in a supply chain using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. This method automatically adjusts the initial inventory levels of all tiers involved in a supply chain by considering information quality level (IQL), which is determined by the degree of availability of lead time history data. Analyses of variance are used to examine if there are any effects of IQL on the total cost and order fill rates. The results show that the proposed method finds better solutions which provide a lower inventory level while maintaining higher order fill rates than when PSO is not applied.close0

Which preventive measures might protect health care workers from SARS?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite the use of a series of preventive measures, a high incidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was observed among health care workers (HCWs) during the SARS epidemic. This study aimed to determine which preventive measures may have been effective in protecting HCWs from infection, and which were not effective.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective study was performed among 758 'frontline' health care workers who cared for SARS patients at the Second Affiliated Hospital and the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. The HCWs with IgG against SARS and those without IgG against SARS were respectively defined as the "case group" and the "control group", and logistic regression was conducted to explore the risk factors for SARS infection in HCWs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After adjusting for age, gender, marital status, educational level, professional title, and the department in which an individual worked, the results of a multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that incidence of SARS among HCWs was significantly and positively associated with: performing tracheal intubations for SARS patients, methods used for air ventilation in wards, avoiding face-to-face interaction with SARS patients, the number of pairs of gloves worn by HCWs, and caring for serious SARS cases.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Some measures, particularly good air ventilation in SARS wards, may be effective in minimizing or preventing SARS transmission among HCWs in hospitals.</p