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In the mobile edge computing (MEC) architecture, base stations with computational capabilities are subject to service coverage limitations, and the mobility of devices leads to dynamic changes in their connections, directly impacting the offloading decisions of agents. The connections between base stations and mobile devices, as well as the connections between base stations themselves, are abstracted into an MEC structural diagram due to the difficulty of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) in capturing the complex relationships between nodes and their multi-order neighboring nodes in the graph; decisions solely generated by DRL have limitations. To address this issue, this study proposes a hierarchical mechanism strategy based on Graph Neural Reinforcement Learning (M-GNRL) under multiple constraints. Specifically, the MEC structural graph constructed with the current device as an observation point aggregates to learn node features, thus comprehensively considering the contextual information of nodes, and the learned graph information serves as the environment for deep reinforcement learning, effectively integrating a graph neural network (GNN) with DRL. In the M-GNRL strategy, edge features from GNN are introduced into the architecture of the DRL network to enhance the accuracy of agents' decision-making. Additionally, this study proposes an updated algorithm to obtain graph data that change with observation points. Comparative experiments demonstrate that the M-GNRL algorithm outperforms other baseline algorithms in terms of system cost and convergence performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapidly expanding older population across Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) underscores the urgent need to strengthen the health systems. However, the extent of service coverage and healthcare workforce allocation strategies for geriatric and palliative care in LMICs remains inadequately explored. To address this, we conducted this systematic review, following the standard guidelines, to synthesize available data from four databases spanning 2011 to 2022. Utilizing the Risk of Bias Assessment tool for non-randomized studies (ROBANS) for quantitative studies and the JBI (formerly known as Joanna Briggs Institute) checklist for qualitative research, we assessed the risk of bias and the quality in the included studies. Despite a comprehensive search, only three eligible studies were found, revealing a scarcity of research. The identified challenges include deficiencies in leadership, governance, financing, and essential resources, leading to compromised service coverage. The health workforce, often limited and lacking inadequate training, exacerbates the situation. Our evidence synthesis proposes some potential solutions such as telemedicine and cross-country collaboration through distance learning mechanisms to address these issues. The findings and recommendations from this review offer valuable insights applicable across various healthcare service contexts within LMICs and advocate for more health systems research in this topic area.

Progressive realization of universal health coverage (UHC) requires health systems capacity to provide quality service and financial risk protection which supports access to services without financial hardship. Government health spending in low-income countries (LICs) has been low and heavily relied on external donor resources and out-ofpocket payment. This has resulted in high prevalence of catastrophic health spending or foregone care by those who cannot afford. Under fiscal constraints posed by pandemic, reforms in LICs should focus on efficiency through health resource waste reduction. Targeting the poor even with low level of health spending can make a significant health gain. Investment in primary healthcare and health workforce is the foundation for realizing UHC which cannot be postponed. Innovative tax on health hazardous products, conditional debt relief can increase fiscal space for health; while international collaboration to accelerate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine coverage can bring LICs out of acute phase of pandemic.

The proliferation of gated communities (GC) has prompted researchers worldwide to investigate its causes and consequences. The phenomenon has been extensively discussed as a significant residential form in the world, but most of the studies are primarily concerned with non-technical issues such as inequality and segregation, while technical issues such as urban transit (PT) systems have not been fully discussed. The significance of accessibility-focused PT planning to establish a sustainable urban transportation system makes this issue a crucial topic to explore. PT is a public good expected to be accessible to everyone, and this means the distance between people and the system needs to be minimized to maximize the service coverage, but the GC design is observed to be increasing the distance of its residents willing to use this service. Therefore, this study analyzed the impact of GC on the PT system using Bogor Municipality as a case study through GIS (Geographical Information System) methodologies and spatial data. The quantitative evidence showed that GC has a relatively strong negative correlation with PT service coverage (r (66) = from -0.611 to -0.631, p

The reliable service coverage of many facilities or sensors used in smart city infrastructure is highly susceptible to obstructions in urban environments. Optimizing the line-of-sight (LOS) service coverage is essential to locating these facilities for smarter city services. Despite progression in the maximal coverage location problem (MCLP) model for locating facilities, maximizing the LOS service coverage in continuous demand space for facility location problems remains challenging. This study defined the LOS-constrained MCLPs (LOS-MCLPs) and proposed a service coverage optimization model to solve these LOS-MCLPs. We employed a computational geometry algorithm named the visibility polygon (VP) algorithm to simulate the LOS coverage in two-dimensional (2D) continuous demand space. We then coupled this algorithm with a robust heuristic algorithm to search for the optimal solutions to maximize effective LOS service coverage. An experiment applied the developed model to a Wi-Fi hotspot planning problem. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed model can obtain optimal solutions for LOS-MCLPs according to the distribution of obstacles. Comparative results show that ignoring the LOS effect in the optimization of LOS-MCLPs might lead to large areas of service dead zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although current technologies allow simple online banking transactions, it is vital to guarantee access to bank branches both for customers and businesses. Banking branch interactions improve trust in bank institutions in everyday situations and emergencies. This research addresses the problem of the location of banking facilities. A set of objective functions related to socio-economic variables, geographical coverage and bankers preferences are considered. A multi-objective linear programming model is proposed to solve different versions of the problem considering a maximum radial distance coverage. The (mono/bi/multi) objective versions of the problem are analyzed by varying the values of the weights of objective functions in the proposed model that is then solved using AMPL Gurobi solver. The case study is carried out in Santiago de Chile with data from a local banking institution. In the results, the bank’s initial situation is analyzed to contrast the solutions found later. This analysis is performed considering the mono-objective, bi-objective, and multi-objective nature of the studied problem. In all these cases, we analyzed changes in the structure of solutions as the coverage of the branches increases. The proposed model can quickly obtain feasible solutions according to the needs and available resources, allowing to replicate the analysis in different institutions under similar conditions considering strategically established priorities.

Abstract Background Expansion of maternal health service coverage is crucial for the survival and wellbeing of both mother and child. To date, limited literature exists on the measurement of maternal health service coverage at the sub-national level in India. The prime objectives of the study were to comprehensively measure the maternal health service coverage by generating a composite index, map India by categorizing it into low, medium and high zones and examine its incremental changes over time. Methods Utilising a nationally representative time series data of 15 key indicators spread across three domains of antenatal care, intranatal care and postnatal care, we constructed a novel ‘Maternal Health Service Coverage Index’ (MHSI) for 29 states and 5 union territories of India for the base (2017–18) and reference (2019–20) years. Following a rigorous procedure, MHSI scores were generated using both arithmetic mean and geometric mean approaches. We categorized India into low, medium and high maternal health service coverage zones and further generated geospatial maps to examine the extent and transition of maternal health service coverage from base to reference year. Results India registered the highest mean percentage coverage (93.7%) for ‘institutional delivery’ and the lowest for ‘treatment for obstetric complications’ (9.3%) among all the indicators. Depending on the usage of arithmetic mean and geometric mean approaches, the maternal health service coverage index score for India exhibited marginal incremental change (between 0.015—0.019 index points) in the reference year. West zone exhibited an upward transition in the coverage of maternal health service indicators, while none of the zones recorded a downward movement. The states of Mizoram (east zone) and the Union Territory of Puducherry (south zone) showed a downward transition. Union territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli (west zone) and Chandigarh (north zone), along with the states of Maharashtra (west zone), Assam, as well as Jharkhand (both from the east & north east zone), showed upward transition. Conclusion Overall, maternal health service coverage is increasing across India. Our study offers a novel summary measure to comprehensively quantify the coverage of maternal health services, which can momentously help India identify lagged indicators and low performing regions, thereby warranting the targeted interventions and concentrated programmatic efforts to bolster the maternal health service coverage at the sub-national level.

A planar maximum coverage location problem in a continuous formulation is considered. The demand zone and service areas are presented as geometric items of given shapes and sizes. Each service area is associated with a point (centroid), relative to which the corresponding geometric item forms. The task is to find the position of the centroids to provide an optimal service for the demand zone according to a given criterion. The mathematical model is constructed as a nonlinear optimization problem, in which the variables are the coordinates of the centroids, and the objective function is defined as the area of the demand zone covered by the services. For the formalization and calculation of the objective function, both analytical expressions and computer geometry software are used. The methodology we propose is applicable to the arbitrary shapes of both the demand zone and the service areas. Moreover, this technique does not depend on the complexity of the corresponding items, since it uses the Shapely library, which operates with the same Polygon class. An approach to solving the problem based on the consistent application of local and global optimization methods is proposed. An auxiliary problem is posed that allows one to significantly reduce the run time at the stage of local optimization. The implementation of the approach is illustrated by examples of the maximum coverage location problem when the demand zone is a polygon and the service areas have the shape of a circle and an ellipse. The innovation of this paper lies in the fact that the maximum service coverage problem in business site selection is studied in such a way that both the demand zone and the service areas have an arbitrary shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inadequate fire emergency response infrastructure and a lack of defined service coverage remain key barriers to timely fire disaster response. This study is applied research which employed geospatial techniques and aimed at examining fire disaster emergency response demand and supply relationships with the view to delineating service coverage and locating more facilities for optimum coverage in Kano metropolis. Locations of the existing fire stations and fire incidents (2009-2019) were gathered through GPS surveying. Network data set were generated. Nearest Neighbor and Network Analysis (origindestination, service coverage and location-allocation) were conducted to determine emergency response demand and supply relationships, service coverage area delineation and identifying best site for allocating new facilities within the metropolis respectively. It was found that no clearly defined service coverage exist as emergency response supply takes more than 4-8 times the NFPA travel standard, and with a great deal of overlapping response patterns. New service coverage areas were proposed and best sites for 8 firefighting facilities identified for optimum coverage. It is concluded that emergency fire disaster response demand and supply relationships within Kano metropolis is imbalanced, with extensive recurrent demand especially within the core area served by overstretched and inefficient response supply. This, therefore, implies continuous exposure of lives and properties to the menace of fire disaster in Kano metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progressive realization of universal health coverage (UHC) requires health systems capacity to provide quality service and financial risk protection which supports access to services without financial hardship. Government health spending in low-income countries (LICs) has been low and heavily relied on external donor resources and out-ofpocket payment. This has resulted in high prevalence of catastrophic health spending or foregone care by those who cannot afford. Under fiscal constraints posed by pandemic, reforms in LICs should focus on efficiency through health resource waste reduction. Targeting the poor even with low level of health spending can make a significant health gain. Investment in primary healthcare and health workforce is the foundation for realizing UHC which cannot be postponed. Innovative tax on health hazardous products, conditional debt relief can increase fiscal space for health; while international collaboration to accelerate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine coverage can bring LICs out of acute phase of pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the coordinate data of community sports facilities in Fuzhou and the Geographic Information System platform, this paper developed a research framework of accessibility from three aspects of distribution, service coverage and access equality level. In addition, based on this, this paper analyzed the level and characteristics of the accessibility of community sports facilities within the third ring road of Fuzhou, China. The results showed that the community sports facilities within the third ring road of Fuzhou basically achieved the coverage of being within a ten-minute walking distance, but there were still some deficiencies regarding to the distribution of facilities and the equality level of accessibility. In addition, the results showed poor spatial matching between the number of facilities and population. A shortage of community sports facilities was found in the old central urban area, leading to poor accessibility. It is suggested in this paper that an overall improvement could be carried out through urban renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Expansion of maternal health service coverage is crucial for the survival and wellbeing of both mother and child. To date, limited literature exists on the measurement of maternal health service coverage at the sub-national level in India. The prime objectives of the study were to comprehensively measure the maternal health service coverage by generating a composite index, map India by categorizing it into low, medium and high zones and examine its incremental changes over time.Methods: Utilising a nationally representative time series data of 15 key indicators spread across three domains of antenatal care, intranatal care and postnatal care, we constructed a novel 'Maternal Health Service Coverage Index' (MHSI) for 29 states and 5 union territories of India for the base (2017-18) and reference (2019-20) years. Following a rigorous procedure, MHSI scores were generated using both arithmetic mean and geometric mean approaches. We categorized India into low, medium and high maternal health service coverage zones and further generated geospatial maps to examine the extent and transition of maternal health service coverage from base to reference year.Results: India registered the highest mean percentage coverage (93.7%) for 'institutional delivery' and the lowest for 'treatment for obstetric complications' (9.3%) among all the indicators. Depending on the usage of arithmetic mean and geometric mean approaches, the maternal health service coverage index score for India exhibited marginal incremental change (between 0.015-0.019 index points) in the reference year. West zone exhibited an upward transition in the coverage of maternal health service indicators, while none of the zones recorded a downward movement. The states of Mizoram (east zone) and the Union Territory of Puducherry (south zone) showed a downward transition. Union territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli (west zone) and Chandigarh (north zone), along with the states of Maharashtra (west zone), Assam, as well as Jharkhand (both from the east & north east zone), showed upward transition.Conclusion: Overall, maternal health service coverage is increasing across India. Our study offers a novel summary measure to comprehensively quantify the coverage of maternal health services, which can momentously help India identify lagged indicators and low performing regions, thereby warranting the targeted interventions and concentrated programmatic efforts to bolster the maternal health service coverage at the sub-national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, with the rapid expansion of urban space and the explosion of population within communities in China, fire stations face challenges in providing timely response to potential demands throughout their service coverage. To ensure speedy and equitable provision of fire services, it is essential to evaluate the accessibility of fire stations under the current fire service systems. Traditional accessibility analysis is often based on the aggregated large areal units, such as the census tracks, failing to assess accessibility of individual buildings. In this regard, this study seeks to analyze potential accessibility to urban fire stations at a fine scale, i.e., the building level, and to provide valuable information to assist in strategic planning of fire stations in urban areas and within local communities. Because the detailed intra-community roads are not stored in the official city map database, we propose to use a classic GIS technology, the Delaunay triangulation model, to automatically extract the intra-community roads from building footprints. With these private roads integrated into the existing city roads, a simulated road network is constructed. Then, the Voronoi-based method and buffering method are used to assess accessibility to urban fire stations. Results reveal that the current layout of fire stations in the study area is not sufficient to achieve a complete coverage of potential demands in the stipulated time, and the traditional central areas enjoy better access to fire services compared to the periphery areas. The building-level analyses will not only enable decision-makers to strategically allocate new fire stations in the urban areas, but also help local authorities to enhance fire safety management within the community. The proposed method can also be applied to fine-scale analysis of neighborhood services' accessibility in other cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about costs and cost effectiveness of interventions that integrate wasting prevention into screening for child wasting., Objectives: This study's objective was to estimate the cost and cost-effectiveness of an intervention that integrated behavior change communication (BCC) and small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) into platforms for wasting screening in Burkina Faso (a facility-based platform, where BCC was enhanced compared with standard care) and Mali (a community-based platform, with standard BCC)., Methods: Activity-based costing was used to estimate the cost per child-contact for the intervention and the comparison group, which did not receive the intervention. Costs were ascertained from accounting records, interviews, surveys, and observations. The number of child-contacts was calculated using population size estimates and average attendance rates for each service. Costs per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted were estimated using a Markov model populated with data from the parent trials on impact of wasting incidence and treatment coverage., Results: In the intervention group in Burkina Faso, the cost per child-contact of facility-based screening was $0.85 of enhanced BCC was $4.28, and of SQ-LNS was $8.86. In Mali, the cost per child-contact of community-based screening was $0.57, standard BCC was $0.72, and SQ-LNS was $4.14. Although no SQ-LNS costs were incurred in the comparison groups (hence lower total costs), costs per child-contact for screening and BCC were higher because coverage of these services was lower. The intervention package cost $1073 per DALY averted in Burkina Faso and $747 in Mali., Conclusions: Integration of wasting prevention into screening for child wasting led to higher total costs but lower unit costs than standard screening due to increased coverage. Greater cost-effectiveness could be achieved if BCC were strengthened and led to improved caregiver health and nutrition practices and if screening triggered appropriate use of services and higher treatment coverage., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Health insurance is one of the main financing mechanisms currently being used in low and middle-income countries to improve access to quality services. Tanzania has been running its National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) since 2001 and has recently undergone significant reforms. However, there is limited attention to the causal mechanisms through which NHIF improves service coverage and quality of care. This paper aims to use a system dynamics (qualitative) approach to understand NHIF causal pathways and feedback loops for improving service coverage and quality of care at the primary healthcare level in Tanzania. We used qualitative interviews with 32 stakeholders from national, regional, district, and health facility levels conducted between May to July 2021. Based on the main findings and themes generated from the interviews, causal mechanisms, and feedback loops were created. The majority of feedback loops in the CLDs were reinforcing cycles for improving service coverage among beneficiaries and the quality of care by providers, with different external factors affecting these two actions. Our main feedback loop shows that the NHIF plays a crucial role in providing additional financial resources to facilities to purchase essential medical commodities to deliver care. However, this cycle is often interrupted by reimbursement delays. Additionally, beneficiaries' perception that lower-level facilities have poorer quality of care has reinforced care seeking at higher-levels. This has decreased lower level facilities' ability to benefit from the insurance and improve their capacity to deliver quality care. Another key finding was that the NHIF funding has resulted in better services for insured populations compared to the uninsured. To increase quality of care, the NHIF may benefit from improving its reimbursement administrative processes, increasing the capacity of lower levels of care to benefit from the insurance and appropriately incentivizing providers for continuity of care. • The NHIF influences service coverage and quality in complex ways. • NHIF reimbursement is crucial for facilities and its delay affects inputs for quality. • Lower levels of care benefit less from NHIF. • Need to improve reimbursement process to enhance quality of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The Republic of Moldova is faced with a high prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) related to lifestyle and health behavioural factors. Within the frame of the decentralisation reform, the primary health care system has been tasked to play an important role in the provision of preventative and curative NCD health services. There is however limited evidence available on the actual coverage and quality of care provided. Our paper aims to provide an updated overview of the coverage and quality of service provision in rural and urban regions of Moldova. Methods We designed a facility-based survey to measure aspects of coverage and quality of care of NCD services across 20 districts of the Republic of Moldova. This study presents descriptive data on the structural, procedural and clinical aspects of primary healthcare delivery at health centre and family doctor office level. Adjacent private pharmacies were also assessed for the availability of essential NCD medicine. Results Organised under the WHO Health Systems Framework, our findings highlight that service provision and information were generally the strongest among the six health systems building blocks, with more weaknesses found in the area of the health workforce, medical products, financing, and leadership/governance. Urban facilities generally fared better across all indicators. Conclusions The gaps in service provision identified by this study require broad health system improvements to ensure NCD related policies and strategies are embedded in primary health care service provision. This likely calls for stronger coordination and collaboration between the public and private sectors and the different levels of government working towards ensuring universal health coverage in Moldova.

Abstract Background General practitioner (GP) system is proved to be effective in over 50 countries worldwide. Guangdong province, as a reform pilot in China, initiated its patient-GP contract service reform in 2014. This study is designed to assess the patients’ acceptance of General Practitioners Contract (GPC) reform and explore its influencing factors. Methods This survey interviewed 1010 participants from 16 primary health centers (PHCs) chosen from 4 pilot cities in Guangdong during July and December in 2015. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews. The questionnaire was developed to discover the acceptance of GPC and covered three parts: respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics, health service utilization, and the patients’ assessment of primary health care centers. A binary logistic regression model was used to measure the influencing factors of respondents’ acceptance of GPC policy. Results A total of 611(60.5%) participants accepted GPC policy. Compared to patients visited PHCs over 7 times in the previous year, those visited PHCs fewer times reported lower acceptance of GPC policy (OR:0.68, 95% CI:0.49–0.96 for visits ≤3 times and OR:0.57, 95% CI:0.38–0.84 for visits = 4–6 times). Patients’ satisfaction with medical service coverage was positively associated with patients’ acceptance of GPC (OR: 1.72, 95% CI:1.01–3.98 for the satisfied versus the dissatisfied; OR: 1.38, 95% CI:0.92–3.30 for neutral versus the dissatisfied), and the satisfaction with drug list also positively influenced patients’ acceptance of GPC policy (OR: 1.44, 95% CI:1.26–2.73 for the satisfied versus the dissatisfied; OR:1.61, 95% CI:1.36–2.99 for neutral versus the dissatisfied). Meanwhile, age and education had positive impacts on the acceptance of the GPC policy. Conclusion This study finds out that patients’ satisfaction with medical service coverage and drug list are the influencing factors for the acceptance of GPC policy. Therefore, improvement of medical service accessibility such as better follow-up of patients with chronic diseases and enhanced referral service, as well as the expansion of drug list, will improve patients’ acceptance of GPC policy. It also finds that patients using more primary health service are inclined to accept GPC policy, so more attractive and high-quality service should be provided in PHCs.

In this paper, geomatics techniques were used to collect, build, and analyze a geo-database of the bus transport network. Spatial identification of bus routes and bus stops using GPS was performed using GIS to link and analyze the necessary metadata with the available spatial data. The criteria used to assess bus service coverage were as follows: the spatial coverage in terms of the walking distance to the transport service, the adequacy of the transport network length, and extent of supply availability of the bus transport system. The results revealed that the population “living in 47% of the city’s urban area” could arrive at a transport service within a period of less than 5 minutes (in other words, a walking distance of less than 400 m), which is the typical time to arrival. Furthermore, the study concluded that the current length of the transport network is sufficient to provide typical spatial coverage for the city's entire urban area if redistributed.

Abstract—Achievement of universal health coverage requires better allocative efficiency in health systems. Countries like the Philippines, however, do not have quality local data for these decisions. We present a method that applies existing global data, e.g., Global Burden of Disease and Disease Control Priorities project, into creating a local priority list of diseases and interventions that may be useful in providing a rational plan for expanding coverage of health services paid by public financing. In the context of the Philippines, this refers to the Department of Health for vertical programs like immunization and disease control, and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation for inpatient and outpatient health services. We found that the top 48 (or 22%) of diseases account for 80% of total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), reflecting a well-known concept in management, the Pareto principle. Due to its simplicity and widespread applicability, the Pareto principle facilitated interest in rational priority setting among high-level officials in the Philippine health sector. Priority setting must not be limited to disease burden and cost-effectiveness criteria. Our lists can be used after further deliberation and stakeholder consultation. Priority setting is a complex, value-laden process, and a purely utilitarian approach to prioritization may lead to further deterioration in the health status of vulnerable populations. We recommend that DOH and PHIC set up a joint, independent agency primarily responsible for implementing a sustainable, transparent, and participatory priority-setting process that will advise them on future service coverage expansions.

This study examines how metro stations can expand their service coverage for passengers by implementing a public bicycle sharing system (PBSS) in the vicinity. We design a stated preference method questionnaire to determine the choice behavior intention of metro passengers toward PBSS and calibrate the survey data using the mixed logit model. We also use a geographic information system to display this expansion in metro station service coverage following the incorporation of PBSS. We then conduct a cost-benefit analysis of PBSS incorporation into the metro system to determine its cost-effectiveness. The decision criteria for PBSS station allocation strategies as derived in this study can act as useful references for urban planners and PBSS operation agencies when initiating low-carbon and sustainable policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Traditional markets are trading places which still have the original characteristics of traditional trade in accordance with the local culture. Because a number of changes to meet the needs of society, the merchandises that are bought and sold in traditional markets is not only local genuine goods. The merchandises mostly coming from other regions and even comes from large-scale industrial products. This study aims to determine the service coverage of Somoroto traditional market in Kauman Subdistrict, Ponorogo District using mixed methods: quantitative and qualitative descriptive analysis. First, analysis of the mechanism or process of buying and selling goods. Second, analysis of location choosing traders and buyers in the shop at traditional markets Somoroto. Third, the analysis of the origin of traders and buyers. Fourth, the service area network analysis Somoroto traditional markets. The results of this study are as follows: first, as a collection of commodity distribution, Somoroto traditional markets have commodities and scope of different services. Second, most of the merchandises is imported from outside of the Kauman sub-district and Ponorogo district. Third, selling mechanism that characterizes the local culture as “nempur”, “ngutang” and “nempil” are still applied. Fourth, the reason for choosing location in Somoroto traditional markets is not merely a cheap price, but also the ties to social interaction.

The distance pedestrians are willing to walk from their homes to the bus stop is of great importance for planning, modeling, design and evaluation of public transport systems. The distributional assumptions used for modeling walking distances are relevant because the empirical distributions have characteristics that are not well represented by standard distributions. There is also the issue of perceived versus the actual distance pedestrians walk to the bus stops since user perception of transit characteristics such as distance to the bus stops is important for patronage. The purpose of this paper is to propose an easy and reliable way to estimate the walking distances to the bus stops. It also explores which statistical distribution better fits the empirical distribution of walking distance and compares the real, perceived and stated preference distances. The results show that a small sample size (about 300) is enough to estimate the average distance walked to bus stops within 25 m with a 95% confidence. The real distances users walk to bus stops in San Jose Costa Rica are approximately 255 m, 525 m and 740 m for the 50th, 85th, and 95th percentiles respectively, based on the estimates of the gamma distribution. The users of the transit system in San Jose perceived a distance that was in general higher than the real distance they walked, also they declared to be willing to walk further distances than those they are walking presently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of residents in low- and middle-income countries are served by onsite sanitation. Equitable access to sanitation, including emptying, collection, and transport services for the accumulation of faecal sludge remains a major challenge. Comprehensive information on service coverage by mechanical faecal sludge emptying service providers is lacking. The purpose of this study is to analyse the spatial distribution of service coverage and identify areas without faecal sludge emptying services in Kampala, Uganda. The study uses GIS (geographic information systems) as a tool to analyse real-time data of service providers based on GPS (global positioning system) units that were installed in a representative number of trucks. Of the total recorded 5653 emptying events, 27% were located outside Kampala city boundaries. Of those within Kampala city boundaries, 37% were classified as non-household customers. Areas without service provision accounted for 13% of the total area. Service provision normalised by population density revealed much greater service provision in medium- and high-income areas than low- and very low-income areas. The employed method provides a powerful tool to optimise faecal sludge management on a city-wide scale by increasing sustainability of the planning and decision-making process, increasing access to service provision and reducing faecal sludge transport times and costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spectrum sharing between primary TV systems (Channels 9 and 35) and Public Safety Networks (PSNs) is presented in this article. The networks to be deployed within Television White Space (TVWS) in Ilorin metropolis of Kwara State operate on a secondary basis spatially, without causing harmful interference to incumbent TV users. In order to guarantee the protection of incumbent TV users both in VHF and UHF bands, minimum separation distances were suggested considering field strengths of 36 dBu and 41 dBu as the protected contours for the two bands respectively. The effects of varying the transmit power and the antenna height of the secondary system on the coverage area are emphasized in this work. Aggregate interference effect from the multiple secondary systems on the TV service coverage was also investigated. The performances of VHF and UHF bands were also verified when used for secondary transmission both at lower and higher transmit power scenarios. The results of this work show that the safety networks can co-exist with the TV systems without causing harmful interference with the suggested separation distances at the edge of the noise-limited service area, where the signal-to-noise ratio is 16 dB as recommended by the International Telecommunication Union-Radio sector (ITU-R).

A redução de custos na compra de medicamentos é preocupação constante dos administradores públicos. Este artigo analisa a cobertura e custos do Consórcio Paraná Saúde (CPS), constituído para aquisição de medicamentos para prefeituras do Paraná. A cobertura abrangeu os municípios participantes e suas populações. Os custos dos medicamentos adquiridos foram comparados com os valores constantes no Banco de Preços do Ministério da Saúde (BP/MS). Até o final de 2000, o CPS atingia 88,2% dos municípios e 55,6% da população paranaense. Dos municípios participantes, 83,5% possuíam menos de 20 mil habitantes. Foram comparados os preços de 55 itens constantes na lista de compras do CPS e no BP/MS em 2000. Destes, 46 apresentaram preços menores nas compras do CPS, um teve preço igual e oito apresentaram preços maiores. A aquisição pelo consórcio teve o custo de R$ 332.397,70 (29,7%) a menos do que custaria com os preços apontados no BP/MS. A constituição do CPS mostrou-se uma boa estratégia administrativa de farmacoeconomia, propiciando agilidade e racionalidade no uso dos recursos financeiros, possibilitando a ampliação do acesso da população aos medicamentos.Public administrators are always concerned in reducing the costs of drug purchases. This article analyzes the coverage and costs of the Paraná Health Consortium (CPS) which was created to purchase drugs for municipalities of the state of Paraná, Brazil. Coverage included the participating municipalities and their populations. The costs of the acquired drugs were compared to the values available in the Price Database of the Health Department (BP/MS). Until the end of 2000, the CPS had covered 88.2% of the municipalities and 55.6% of the Paraná population. Among the participating municipalities, 83.5% had fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. The prices of 55 items available on the purchase list of the CPS and in the BP/ MS were compared: 46 were lower, one was the same and eight were higher than those of the BP/MS. Acquisition by the consortium has cost R$ 332,397.70 (29.7%) less than that by the BP/MS standards. The implementation of the CPS was found to be a good administrative strategy of pharmacoeconomics which led to agility and rationality in the use of financial resources, allowing wider access of the population to drugs.

Service oriented architecture has been proposed to support collaborations among distributed wireless sensor network (WSN) applications in an open dynamic environment. However, WSNs are resource constraint, and have limited computation abilities, limited communication bandwidth and especially limited energy. Fortunately, sensor nodes in WSNs are usually deployed redundantly, which brings the opportunity to adopt a sleep schedule for balanced energy consumption to extend the network lifetime. Due to miniaturization and energy efficiency, one sensor node can integrate several sense units and support a variety of services. Traditional sleep schedule considers only the constraints from the sensor nodes, can be categorized to a one-layer (i.e., node layer) issue. The service oriented WSNs should resolve the energy optimization issue considering the two-layer constraints, i.e., the sensor nodes layer and service layer. Then, the one-layer energy optimization scheme in previous work is not applicable for service oriented WSNs. Hence, in this paper we propose a sleep schedule with a service coverage guarantee in WSNs. Firstly, by considering the redundancy degree on both the service level and the node level, we can get an accurate redundancy degree of one sensor node. Then, we can adopt fuzzy logic to integrate the redundancy degree, reliability and energy to get a sleep factor. Based on the sleep factor, we furthermore propose the sleep mechanism. The case study and simulation evaluations illustrate the capability of our proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bus-stop consolidation is one of the most cost-effective ways for a transit agency to improve the quality of their bus services. By removing unnecessary stops, buses will have reduced runtimes, which can lead to higher frequencies and/or fewer buses on a route. Unfortunately, current research on bus stop consolidation and stop spacing focuses on complex mathematical models that are difficult for agencies to apply, and that overlook many important real-world considerations. The goal of this paper is to propose a new bus stop consolidation methodology that is realistic, simple, and effective, while at the same time being sensitive to people with reduced mobility and adaptable to the needs of different agencies. The new methodology is tested on the bus network of the Société de transport de Montreal (STM). Adopting this simple methodology is expected to remove 23 % of the network's stops while only reducing the system coverage area by 1 %. The removal of these stops could result in morning-peak savings of 109 h of operating time and the elimination of a bus from up to 75 routes at the system level. This methodology can be applied to any urban bus network, and thus can be of interest to transit agencies and transportation researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a set of candidate regulatory requirements for TV band devices (TVBDs) in the Rep. of Korea. To guarantee the protection of incumbent services, especially digital TV (DTV) and wireless microphones, in TV frequency bands, we suggest minimum separation distances of TVBDs from the noise-limited contour according to incumbent users and TVBD types. This paper also deals with multiple sets of separation distances of a co-channel TVBD network from a DTV protected contour on the basis of the radio propagation characteristics of different geographic areas to make good use of TV white space (TVWS) and safely protect the DTV service. We present a low-power transmission mode of TVBDs and the relevant separation distances for small-cell deployment. The service coverage reduction ratio of a TVBD network is investigated in the presence of DTV interference in four geographic areas. The TVWS field verification results, conducted on the island of Jeju (Rep. of Korea), show that incumbent services operate well without harmful interference from neighboring TVBDs with the proposed separation distances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a general-purpose design scheme of a filter bank (FB)-based radio frequency (RF) transceiver that operates across the entire ultra-high frequency (UHF) TV band from 470 MHz to 698 MHz and complies with the TV white space (TVWS) regulatory requirements. To this end, an intermediate frequency (IF) band-pass filter (BPF) with a sharp skirt characteristic is considered as a solution for handling the incoming signals from a baseband modem. Specifically, an FB-based BPF structure with four ceramic resonator filters that effectively rejects unwanted signals is proposed to extract a desired signal in the TV band. Achievable data rates of a cognitive radio system (CRS) employing the proposed FBbased RF transceiver at the application layer are investigated in both wired and wireless environments. The service coverage of the CRS network is measured according to several modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) of the CRS. The results show that the coverage of a wireless network in a nearly open area can be extended by more than 9.3 km in the TVWS. Experimental results also confirm that the proposed FB-based RF transceiver is adequate for utilization in TVWS applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides a system that determines where to locate k disks-like services of radius r so that they globally cover as much as possible a region of demand. It is an NP-hard problem with notorious applications in the facility location field when locating multiple warning sirens, cellular towers, radio stations, or pollution sensors covering as much area as possible of a city or geographical region. The region of demand is assumed to be delimited by a general polygonal domain, and the resolution strategy relies on a parallel simulated annealing optimization technique based on a suitable perturbation strategy and a probabilistic estimation of the area of the polygonal region covered by the k disks in O (k 2) time. The system provides a good enough location for the disks starting from an arbitrary initial solution with very reasonable running times. The proposal is experimentally tested by visualizing the solutions, analyzing and contrasting their quality, and studying the computational efficiency of the entire strategy. • Sits k equal disk-like facilities maximizing their covering. • Probabilistically estimates the area covered by the disks. • Optimization strategy based on parallel simulated annealing. • Achieves nearly optimal locations in very reasonable running times. • Automatically setting the SA algorithm parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cognitive radio system (CRS) that complies with the maximum allowable transmit power and emission limits of TV band devices (TVBDs). The CRS consists of a TVBD that uses the existing Wi-Fi module and two Wi-Fi modules operating in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Design methods are proposed for a radio frequency (RF) module, a digital signal processing (DSP) module, and a circuit for transmit-receive mode switching in the TV band device (TVBD). The performance of the implemented TVBD is investigated in both wired and wireless environments. The measured data rates of the implemented TVBD at the application layer are approximately 60 % of the theoretical data rates at the physical layer in the Wi-Fi system. The service coverage of a TVBD network is also measured according to several modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) of the TVBD for a single spatial stream. The coverage measurements of a TVBD network are conducted in both a suburban area, Jeju Island, and a nearly open area, Incheon, South Korea. The results show that the service coverage of a mobile network in TV white space (TVWS) can be enlarged by more than 2 km in the suburban area and by more than 8 km in the nearly open area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Predicting Digital TV (DTV) coverage becomes harder as a result of operating IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) in the same TV bands. Interference originates in WRAN could cause DTV service outage. In this paper, the uncertainty in prediction is measured by outage probability, $$P_{o}$$. With spectrum sensing capability, WRAN can avoid operating in the TV band where DTV signal is detected to be present. Nevertheless, due to limited sensing accuracy, interfering operation cannot be completely avoided. Cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) gives better detection by means of combining multiple sensing results. This paper investigates the extent of which $$P_{o}$$ is reduced as a result of implementing CSS in WRAN. The investigation is conducted for two different combining techniques: Equal Gain Combining and Selection Combining, and four different types of channel variability: Gaussian, Nakagami, Rayleigh, and Rician channels. All theoretical results have been validated by Monte Carlo simulations. An arbitrarily chosen example shows that $$P_{o}$$ reduces by about 40 times after implementing CSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]