557 research outputs found
Real estate developer's product positioning: AHP-utility-based model
Inappropriate land development decisions lead to wasted land resources; such bad decisions can negatively impact urban landscapes and the environment, which makes the decision of an appropriate residential environment difficult. Therefore, a suitable assessment model is required to resolve this complexity. The present study applied the fuzzy Delphi method, analytical hierarchy process, utility theory, and other research methods to construct an evaluation model for residential environment location. the study findings reveal that consumers are attracted by regional environmental conditions and architectural design. However, the study found that community welfare is neglected. This model can help decision makers to evaluate utility values and profitability, in order to select the most suitable environment. Therefore, related authorities should strengthen community welfare and neighborhood development. Furthermore, social resources should be integrated in order to deliver social welfare and services to the community, thus enabling people in the community to obtain the necessary resources and assistance
Orderly Spanning Trees with Applications
We introduce and study the {\em orderly spanning trees} of plane graphs. This
algorithmic tool generalizes {\em canonical orderings}, which exist only for
triconnected plane graphs. Although not every plane graph admits an orderly
spanning tree, we provide an algorithm to compute an {\em orderly pair} for any
connected planar graph , consisting of a plane graph of , and an
orderly spanning tree of . We also present several applications of orderly
spanning trees: (1) a new constructive proof for Schnyder's Realizer Theorem,
(2) the first area-optimal 2-visibility drawing of , and (3) the best known
encodings of with O(1)-time query support. All algorithms in this paper run
in linear time.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, A preliminary version appeared in Proceedings of
the 12th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 2001),
Washington D.C., USA, January 7-9, 2001, pp. 506-51
A new model to improve service quality in the property management industry
The categories and quality attributes of property services valued by customers in Taiwan are discussed in this paper. We proposed a hybrid model that combines SERVQUAL, the Kano model, and the Refined Kano model in order to examine a sample of three hundred customers. The results show that the new model analysis validated the effectiveness of the proposed approach while maintaining classification power at par with the Kano questionnaire; a lower turnover rate of service staff (X14) shall be considered the quality attribute of Potential (P), inferring that a lower dismissal rate of service staff allows the management to reduce oft-incurred training expenditures and maintain the company’s competitiveness. Indeed, a more consumer-oriented point of view and differentiated service strategies may effectively resolve the cognitive gap (and eventually the overall gap) between property service staff and customers. Consequently, property services providers would do well either to collaborate with research institutions or to carry out periodic surveys using questionnaires to improve the quality of their services
Dosage and duration of antipsychotic treatment in demented outpatients with agitation or psychosis
Background/PurposeThe USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warnings regarding the use of antipsychotics in patients with dementia in 2003 and 2005. We aimed to study the dose and duration of antipsychotic treatment in dementia, and to examine whether physicians' prescription behaviors changed after the FDA warnings.MethodsMedical charts of outpatients who had Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, or mixed dementia were reviewed. Patients must have achieved a clinically stable state for at least 4 weeks after receiving antipsychotic treatment for agitation or psychosis. Demographics, clinical correlates, and duration of antipsychotic treatment were compared among different antipsychotic groups. Because the quetiapine group had the largest sample size, the optimal dose and duration of quetiapine treatment were compared among three time periods (before 2003, 2003–2005, after 2005).ResultsStable state was achieved in 215 patients (80 had Alzheimer's disease, 117 vascular dementia, and 18 mixed dementia). Most patients (177) took quetiapine, 25 took risperidone, and 13 took sulpiride. The whole sample had a long total duration of antipsychotic treatment (median 525 days, mean 707 days). The median dose and total duration of antipsychotic treatment were 1.0mg/day and 238 days for risperidone, 100mg/day and 390 days for sulpiride, and 25mg/day and 611 days for quetiapine, respectively. The optimal dose and total duration of quetiapine treatment decreased significantly after FDA warning in 2005, although the duration remained long.ConclusionThe optimal doses of antipsychotics were not higher than those of western reports, but the total duration of antipsychotic treatment was quite long. Although our study suggests the prescription dosage and duration of antipsychotic treatment decreased significantly after FDA warning in 2005, the duration of treatment was still long. Given the serious safety concerns, more effort should be made to avoid unnecessary and prolonged prescription
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Exposure to Secondhand Smoke and Risk of Tuberculosis: Prospective Cohort Study
Background: Prospective evidence on the association between secondhand-smoke exposure and tuberculosis is limited. Methods: We included 23,827 never smokers from two rounds (2001 and 2005) of Taiwan National Health Interview Survey. Information on exposure to secondhand smoke at home as well as other sociodemographic and behavioral factors was collected through in-person interview. The participants were prospectively followed for incidence of tuberculosis through cross-matching the survey database to the national tuberculosis registry of Taiwan. Results: A total of 85 cases of active tuberculosis were identified after a median follow-up of 7.0 years. The prevalence of exposure to secondhand smoke at home was 41.8% in the study population. In the multivariable Cox proportional hazards analysis, secondhand smoke was not associated with active tuberculosis (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.03; 95% CI, 0.64 to 1.64). In the subgroup analysis, the association between secondhand smoke and tuberculosis decreased with increasing age; the adjusted HR for those = 18 and = 40 and = 60 years old was 8.48 (0.77 to 93.56), 2.29 (0.75 to 7.01), 1.33 (0.58 to 3.01), and 0.66 (0.35 to 1.23) respectively. Results from extensive sensitivity analyses suggested that potential misclassification of secondhand-smoke exposure would not substantially affect the observed associations. Conclusions: The results from this prospective cohort study did not support an overall association between secondhand smoke and tuberculosis. However, the finding that adolescents might be particularly susceptible to secondhand smoke's effect warrants further investigation
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